| Fast Facts |
location
20 miles west of Nassau; 60 miles east of Miami
ecoregion
Bahamian Archipelago
project size
2,300 square miles of land; 7,500 square miles of marine environment
public lands
Central Andros National Park, Crown lands
partners
Andros Conservancy and Trust, Bahamas National Trust, Department of Fisheries, Bahamas Reef Environment Educational Foundation, Ministry of Tourism, local businesses
conservancy initiatives
Fire, Marine
natural events
Storm-triggered crab migration and festival, June; full-moon fish spawning aggregations, monthly | |
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An anomaly in the Caribbean, Andros Island is big, forested and unspoiled -- a rare Bahamian wilderness teeming with opportunities for conservation. |
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Love Hill Reef.
© Macduff Everton |
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Lying just above the Tropic of Cancer, Andros is the largest and yet least discovered and developed island in the Bahamian Archipelago. Forty miles wide by 100 miles long, Andros hosts only 9,000 residents. Inland, beyond white beaches and mangrove flats renowned for bonefish, most of the island remains forested. Tropical pines, hardwoods, dry broadleaf evergreens and freshwater marshes offer a glimpse of what peninsular Florida, 60 miles to the west, once looked like. In the community of Red Bays lives another link to Florida's past: Seminole Indians who trace their roots on Andros to an exodus from the mainland centuries ago.
Cutting perfect circles into the forest are 200 blue holes -- small, deep pools in the island's limestone skeleton formed when a subterranean cavern collapsed. At first the holes were flooded with seawater; but after countless seasons of storms, fresh water collected, settling atop the heavier salt water. Living in the thin freshwater lens are hundreds of species unique to each blue hole. The secrets of these evolutionary laboratories have intrigued scientists like Jacques Cousteau for decades. |
Tiger grouper.
© Lawson Wood/Corbis |
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Cousteau also led expeditions to explore Andros's 170-mile-long barrier reef, the third-longest coral reef in the world. Near the reef the turquoise waters of the Caribbean turn dark blue as a deep channel curves within a mile of the island's eastern shore. In this "Tongue of the Ocean," where the shallows give way to a precipitous drop of thousands |
| of feet, huge aggregations of grouper spawn on the full moon. Here, from the ocean's depths, sea turtles, barracudas and other creatures emerge onto the near-shore flats. | |
Already tanker ships arrive daily to export 6 million gallons of fresh water to Nassau, posing a severe threat to Andros's ecosystems. Sensing a sea change facing their island, many Androsians and The Nature Conservancy came together to incorporate the Andros Conservancy and Trust, and soon after with the Bahamas National Trust, helped create the island's first protected area -- the Central Andros National Park.
Learn more about The Nature Conservancy's work in the Bahamas. |
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| Conservation Profile |
targets
coral reefs, pine woodlands, blue holes, Nassau grouper, queen conch, rock iguana, West Indian flamingo, green and hawksbill turtles, spotted dolphin, shearwater, Kirtland's warbler
stresses
unsustainable harvest of marine resources, potential freshwater depletion, destruction of mangrove and coastal habitats, altered fire regime, unplanned development
strategies
designate marine and terrestrial protected areas, strengthen local partner organizations, restore ecosystems through fire management, foster sustainable fishing practices
results
established the 300,000-acre Central Andros National Park | | | | |
