Turtlegrass Resort & Island Club

Turtlegrass Resort & Island Club A visionary resort in development in Exuma. Is unusable tourism infrastructure worth destroying the fragile beauty of Exuma?

Celebrating the beauty, culture, and communities of The Bahamas through hands-on experience rooted in appreciation for the surrounding environment. Turtlegrass Resort & Island Club in The Bahamas is designed for guests to gather and connect with the pristine natural paradise of Exuma. The ecotourism project, located on the North Bay of Sampson Cay, is committed to preserving and nurturing the unique seagrass meadows, corals, green sea turtles, Queen conch, and rich biodiversity of the cay. Our campaign, “Paradise Found Under the Water,” seeks to prevent Rosewood and Yntegra from dredging acres of native seagrass in a flawed resort development plan that would imperil this critical marine ecosystem. Learn more here: https://www.turtlegrassresort.com/

Turtlegrass attorneys told The Bahamas Supreme Court that the Sampson Cay approval was based on a different version of t...
01/10/2026

Turtlegrass attorneys told The Bahamas Supreme Court that the Sampson Cay approval was based on a different version of the project from the one Yntegra is now bound to build.

Peter Village, KC, told the court that the plans changed after the environmental assessment was done, including a much longer jetty in North Bay. He argued that the changes were never assessed or put to the public, even though the approval requires Yntegra to build to the revised plans.

Full udpate on our website at the following link: https://www.turtlegrassresort.com/blog/sampson-cay-approval-invalid-because-government-assessed-the-wrong-project-village-kc-tells-court

Turtlegrass attorneys told The Bahamas Supreme Court that the Director of Environmental Planning and Protection breached...
01/10/2026

Turtlegrass attorneys told The Bahamas Supreme Court that the Director of Environmental Planning and Protection breached her legal duties to the public when she approved Yntegra's Rosewood Exuma development.

The court heard that the public was consulted before the Environmental Management Plan existed. That plan is the document setting out how the developer would reduce environmental harm. Key studies on the North Bay service dock were submitted only after consultation had closed.

Attorneys also said the Director gave no reasons for approving dredging and major marine works in North Bay, the same activities Turtlegrass had been expressly barred from carrying out there. Fred Smith, KC, called the decision "baffling and completely irrational."

Read the full update on our website at the following linkhttps://www.turtlegrassresort.com/blog/environment-director-breached-her-duty-to-the-public-smith-kc-tells-court

Gash's report is the second in a series of expert reports on Yntegra’s Rosewood Exuma project that we are releasing over...
30/09/2026

Gash's report is the second in a series of expert reports on Yntegra’s Rosewood Exuma project that we are releasing over the coming weeks.

Mark Gash, Director of Turnstone Ecology Limited and a Full Member of the Chartered Institute of Ecology and Environmental Management, was instructed to provide an independent review of the two documents at the centre of Yntegra's approvals: the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA), which is required by the Department of Environmental Planning and Protection (DEPP) to explain how a project will affect the environment, and the Environmental Management Plan (EMP), which is meant to set out how those impacts will be minimised.

He examined the adequacy of the ecological assessment as a whole, with particular focus on the bird surveys, and measured it against two internationally recognised benchmarks.

Gash found that Yntegra’s EIA submitted in support of its Rosewood Exuma project and the survey programme behind it, he writes, are "wholly inadequate for a site of this ecological sensitivity”.

You can read a summary of the report and the full report on our website at the following link: https://www.turtlegrassresort.com/blog/an-expert-found-yntegras-environmental-case-for-sampson-cay-wholly-inadequate

30/09/2026

NASSAU, BAHAMAS — The Supreme Court’sdecision in the Rosewood Exuma dispute could determine how future developments across The Bahamas are required to comply with the country’s environmental laws, according to former Environment Minister Romauld Ferreira.

The government "rode roughshod" over The Bahamas' environmental laws in approving the Yntegra project, Turtlegrass's cou...
29/09/2026

The government "rode roughshod" over The Bahamas' environmental laws in approving the Yntegra project, Turtlegrass's counsel told the Supreme Court.

Fred Smith, KC, laid out the timeline. In August 2024, CEC 2400 approved land clearing and dredging in North Bay with no consultation. On October 3, residents attended a public meeting without knowing those works were already approved. Five days later, that certificate was revoked and replaced with CEC 2400A, which was issued without any application.

The court heard that the revised EIA and the Environmental Management Plan were not made public until every certificate had been granted. Counsel called this "salami slicing": one resort approved in pieces, so its full impact was never assessed.

Read our full update at the link below:
https://www.turtlegrassresort.com/blog/government-rode-roughshod-over-environmental-laws-in-yntegra-approvals

We recently shared how international environmental expert Andrew Baker’s found Yntegra’s Environmental Impact Assessment...
26/09/2026

We recently shared how international environmental expert Andrew Baker’s found Yntegra’s Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) and Environmental Management Plan (EMP) that they used to get clearances for their project to be “deeply flawed”.

What’s also notable in Baker’s review, which was prepared to assist the Court in determining if the Department of Environmental Planning and Protection was provided the necessary information to evaluate the Yntegra project and issue environmental approvals, is just how deserving of protection he found the Sampson Cay and its surrounding waters to be - even by Yntegra’s own description.

“(Yntegra’s) own documents describe a site of the highest ecological sensitivity supporting both pristine and rare habitats. The EIA records effectively pristine coral reef, extensive seagrass meadows, mangroves, a globally rare stromatolite-forming hypersaline ecosystem, and a range of…Critically Endangered and Endangered species,” said Baker.

“The (Rosewood Exuma) development would cause major and lasting harm to the ecology of the island with a high risk of ongoing long term pollution of the marine environment,” he added.

You can read a summary of the report and the full report on our website at the following link: https://www.turtlegrassresort.com/blog/deeply-flawed-an-environmental-expert-takes-a-deeper-look-into-yntegras-rosewood-exuma-project

As part of their application for a certificate of environmental clearance, Yntegra paired with the project's environment...
24/09/2026

As part of their application for a certificate of environmental clearance, Yntegra paired with the project's environmental impact assessment with a list of names and signatures which it said showed that Black Point and Staniel Cay residents supported the development.

Frederick “Smiley” Ferguson told the Subdivision and Development Appeal Board (SDAB) that this document which Yntegra submitted to planning officials as proof that local residents backed its Sampson Cay development was, in fact, a sign-up sheet for jobs according to a long-time Black Point resident. According to Ferguson, those on the list - more than 70 in total - were never asked if they supported the project.
Ferguson, who has lived in Black Point for 16 years, also criticised the Town Planning Committee’s consultation meetings in Black Point and Georgetown, Exuma, said he was cut off while speaking by a TPC official.

Read Ferguson's full testimony at the link below: https://www.turtlegrassresort.com/blog/yntegra-used-job-sign-up-sheet-to-fake-community-support-for-project-witness-testifies

The environmental assessment behind Yntegra's approvals describes a project the developer no longer intends to build.Tha...
21/09/2026

The environmental assessment behind Yntegra's approvals describes a project the developer no longer intends to build.

That is the second reason Andrew Baker found Yntegra's Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) and Environmental Management Plan (EMP) "deeply flawed" - the plans had "changed materially" since the assessment was submitted to government.

"The marina was relocated, the dredge extent appears to be substantially understated, the supply-dock design depth was altered, and a substantial seawall projecting through the [North Bay Channel] is not assessed at all."

The management plan inherits the problem. It is meant to set out how the damage would be reduced or offset, but it rests on the same assessment:

"…as the EMP was based on the flawed EIA it simply does not address the impacts on species that were never even considered."

Between them, Baker found, the two documents were so lacking in key data that they could not give DEPP what it needed to decide whether this project should go ahead.

Read the summary and the full report on our website: https://www.turtlegrassresort.com/blog/deeply-flawed-an-environmental-expert-takes-a-deeper-look-into-yntegras-rosewood-exuma-project

No major development should go ahead in The Bahamas without proper consultation with the people who will be most affecte...
17/09/2026

No major development should go ahead in The Bahamas without proper consultation with the people who will be most affected.

During Town Planning Committee meetings held earlier this year concerned members of the public who came to express their views about Yntegra’s Rosewood Exuma project were given only a minute per person to ask questions and some were completely cut off from speaking.

Over the last two days, our legal team has been fighting hard at a hearing in Nassau before the Subdivision and Development Appeal Board to make sure these local voices can be heard as part of our appeal against the Site Planning Approval given to Yntegra’s Rosewood Exuma project.

Today, thanks to our lawyers’ efforts, local tour operator Keiran Miller of Staniel Cay Adventures testified before the board about his experience at the town hall meetings about the Rosewood Exuma project - mentioning how he wasn’t even afforded a full minute to speak about his concerns and was harassed and intimidated into stopping by police.

Meanwhile, neighbouring resort Over Yonder Cay spoke to how introducing dredging the North Bay of Sampson Cay would hurt the award-winning resort project that attracts visitors to enjoy the beauty of the local area.

Local experts and community voices have shared their fears about the impact of the Rosewood Exuma project on Sampson Cay...
16/09/2026

Local experts and community voices have shared their fears about the impact of the Rosewood Exuma project on Sampson Cay since it was proposed. Now international experts are sharing their insight too.

Over the coming weeks, Turtlegrass will publish a series of expert witness reports on the Yntegra Group's proposed resort. Each was prepared by a global leader in their respective field, with decades of experience relevant to this case.

This week: The Baker Report giving independent ecological advice on Yntegra’s environmental impact assessment (EIA) and environmental management plan (EMP) proves what we and many others have said all along: that this project would threaten the environment in an extraordinary place and that the Department of Environment and Physical Planning (DEPP) issued their environmental approvals without complete information, proper public consultation or reasonable analysis.

Baker’s report and the others that will follow was based on significant research including information that came to light in recent discovery proceedings, information our legal team had to fight rigorously to uncover. Turtlegrass is now exploring all options available to us to ensure these reports are considered in the judicial review of the environmental approval process.

You can read a summary of the report and the full report on our website at the link below:
https://www.turtlegrassresort.com/blog/deeply-flawed-an-environmental-expert-takes-a-deeper-look-into-yntegras-rosewood-exuma-project

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