Conservation
Bahamas Caves Research Foundation
A Bahamas-based group of scientists, explorers and conservationists that explores and documents blue holes and underwater caves, supports research such as the Sawmill Sink fossil project, and campaigns for their legal protection.
The BCRF describes itself as dedicated to the scientific investigation, exploration and conservation of blue holes, underwater caves and dry caves across the Bahamian archipelago, and says it has been doing this work since 1990. Its stated goals include public education and working with Bahamian government ministries on science- and tourism-based decisions about these sites. Its director is cave diver Brian Kakuk [1].
The foundation's best-documented conservation result is the South Abaco Blue Holes Conservation Area. According to the BCRF, the Bahamas Forestry Department declared nearly 33,000 acres (about 13,000 hectares) a protected Conservation Forest in August 2015, and on 2019-03-22 the area was dedicated to the Queen's Commonwealth Canopy [2]. The BCRF also reports a National Karst Features Protection Proposal covering 16 karst areas and nearly 100 blue-hole entrances, first submitted in 2001 and described as under review [3]. In 2004 Kakuk found the tortoise and crocodile remains that started the Sawmill Sink Project, which the BCRF says was funded by the Antiquities, Monuments and Museums Corporation (National Museum of The Bahamas) [4].
Further reading
Archaeology and palaeontology in underwater caves
Conservation, landowners and responsible access
How underwater caves are surveyed and studied
Life in flooded caves: stygofauna, remipedes and the diver's footprint
Threats to underwater caves today, and how they are protected
Exceptionally well preserved late Quaternary plant and vertebrate fossils from a blue hole on Abaco, The Bahamas ↗
World Remipedia Database ↗
Every fact on this page, with its source (4)
| Fact | Status | Source |
|---|---|---|
| The BCRF says it has been conducting exploration and research in The Bahamas since 1990.Self-reported; no independent founding record found. | Reported | [1] |
| The BCRF reports that the Bahamas Forestry Department declared nearly 33,000 acres of South Abaco a Conservation Forest in August 2015, and that the area was dedicated to the Queen's Commonwealth Canopy on 2019-03-22.Organisation's own account; government gazette not checked. | Reported | [2] |
| The BCRF's National Karst Features Protection Proposal covers 16 karst areas and nearly 100 blue-hole entrances and was first submitted in 2001.Page is undated; current status of the proposal not confirmed. | May be out of date | [3] |
| In 2004 BCRF director Brian Kakuk found a tortoise shell and crocodile skull in Sawmill Sink, leading to a project funded by the Antiquities, Monuments and Museums Corporation.Consistent with Steadman et al. 2007 (PNAS). | Verified | [4] |
Verified: stated by an official or primary source we opened. Reported: from a secondary source only. Sources conflict: the note gives both versions. May be out of date: the newest source we found is old.
Written in our own words from the sources above. Report a correction