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“Deeply flawed”: An environmental expert takes a deeper look into Yntegra’s Rosewood Exuma project
Over the coming weeks, Turtlegrass will publish a series of expert witness reports on the Yntegra Group's proposed Rosewood Exuma resort on Sampson Cay. Each was prepared by a highly qualified specialist for the legal proceedings now before the courts. We are releasing summaries so the public can see what the evidence says. The first is by Ecologist and Conservation Expert, Andrew Baker of Baker Consultants.
Who is Andrew Baker?
Andrew Baker BSc (Hons) FCIEEM has worked as an ecologist in the United Kingdom for almost 40 years and is the founder and managing director of Baker Consultants. He specialises in Environmental Impact Assessment and nature conservation law, was made a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Ecology and Environmental Management in 2015, and has appeared on the ENDS list of the most influential environmental professionals in 2023 and 2025. Turtlegrass asked him to give independent evidence on the environmental case Yntegra put forward for its project.
What Baker was asked to assess
Baker reviewed the two documents at the centre of Yntegra's approvals: their Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA), which is required by the Bahamas Department of Environmental Planning & Protection (DEPP) to explain how their project will impact the environment, and their Environmental Management Plan (EMP) - also required by DEPP - that establishes a process to minimize any environmental impact the project might cause. His report was delivered in June 2026 and is intended to assist the Court in determining if DEPP was provided appropriate information to evaluate the Yntegra project and issue environmental approvals.
Report finds EIA “deeply flawed”
Baker describes Sampson Cay as a site of "exceptional ecological value" and "high sensitivity" — coral reefs, seagrass meadows, mangroves, globally rare wetlands, a conch nursery, and species listed as Critically Endangered and Endangered. Yntegra's own documents, he notes, describe the same.
He found the EIA submitted to the government by Yntegra "deeply flawed." In his assessment, the authorities that granted the approvals were never given appropriate information to reach a sound decision on approvals for the Rosewood Exuma project:
"The material was incapable of supporting a properly informed decision such that no reasonable decision-maker, properly directing itself on the material before it, could conclude that the proposal was acceptable."
"The proposal would cause major adverse impacts on natural habitat and, very likely, on Critical Habitat of international importance."
Why the current EIA cannot be relied on
Key to Baker's concern is that the assessment does not describe the project Yntegra now intends to build. The plans changed after the EIA was written, and some of the most significant elements were never examined at all:
"An EIA can only be relied upon if it assesses the scheme that is actually going to be built. That is not the case here. The EIA and the EMP were prepared for an earlier iteration of the project, and the scheme has since changed materially - 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 cut is not assessed at all."
The underlying surveys that support the EIA’s conclusions were deficient and not up to standard, according to Baker. The entirety of marine work conducted for the Yntegra EIA amounted to only three days of snorkel and manta-tow observation, with no diving; the terrestrial work was done in a single winter season. Whole groups of wildlife went unrecorded:
"Whole groups of species and the seasons in which they are present were not surveyed: breeding and migratory birds, reptiles in their active season, terrestrial invertebrates… were not assessed. No assessment of Critical Habitat was carried out at all."
Baker adds that the assessment does not meet Good International Industry Practice or the biodiversity standards the Bahamas has agreed to uphold. A second independent expert, 20 year ecological veteran and ornithologist Mark Gash, reviewed the same material separately and reached the same conclusions, as did Clive Carpenter, a groundwater and hydrology expert with 33 years of experience, on the specific question of the site's rare wetlands.
No adequate plan to repair the damage
Because the EMP submitted by Yntegra was built on the flawed EIA, Baker found it could not be relied on either - and he doubts the damage the project will cause will be fixed by the proposed plan:
"I have grave doubts that measures such as moving seagrass and corals, and replacing rare wetlands and mature trees will succeed. They will not replace what is lost."
His overall view is that the Certificate of Environmental Clearance (CEC) granted by DEPP for the Yntegra project "should not be permitted to stand."
Stop the work so the real risks can be properly considered
This report confirms what we have said from the start: the project would do serious, lasting harm to an extraordinary place, and the approvals behind it were given without the information the law requires.
This analysis relies on significant research as well as materials that only came to light through discovery of information our legal team had to fight to obtain. We are now pursuing every option available to have this expert analysis and insight properly heard.
Baker's report is the first of a series of expert reports on Yntegra’s Rosewood Exuma project that will be released in coming weeks.
