Regenerative Economy & Ecosystem Fund (REEF) Bahamas

• REEF is a self-sustaining marine conservation model designed for a Grand Bahama pilot. A grant helps seed a local restoration-linked enterprise fund, supporting a proven community leader while creating a mechanism to recycle repaid funds into coral, mangrove, and seagrass restoration.
• The model treats mangroves, seagrass, coral reefs, queen conch, and sea cucumbers as one connected system, restored by the people who live with these ecosystems every day in partnership with the scientific and conservation organizations already working on Grand Bahama.
• The pilot begins in Sweeting's Cay with Shervin Tate, a fifth-generation Bahamian fisherman, Chief Councillor of the community, and owner of a ten-year-old ecotourism business. HCF and Blue Action Lab have completed due diligence with Shervin, including review of his existing business infrastructure and history of successfully repaying prior loans.
• Blue Action Lab serves as the Bahamian implementation partner, coordinating restoration planning, technical assistance, baseline data, and relationships with the scientific and conservation organizations already working on Grand Bahama.
• Since 2024, HCF has helped move REEF from early concept to pilot launch readiness through project design, partner coordination, advisor and donor engagement, diligence, governance development, and creation of the U.S.-based charitable platform.
• The $175,000 pilot launch target includes $100,000 to seed the first restoration-linked enterprise fund and revolving local conservation pool, $25,000 for Blue Action Lab's local implementation and conservation planning, and $50,000 for HCF's platform stewardship, launch readiness, and model development.

Sweeting's Cay is a small fishing community on the far eastern end of Grand Bahama. Fewer than 100 families live there, yet the community contributes on the order of $1 million each year to the Bahamian economy through conch, lobster, and fish. Its livelihoods rest directly on the health of the waters along its shore.

Those waters are in decline. Hurricane Dorian destroyed more than one-third of Grand Bahama's mangroves. Warming seas are pushing fish farther from shore, seagrass beds are thinning, and coral reefs are bleaching. Families that have fished these grounds for generations are watching the ecosystem they know change, while local leaders often lack the capital and technical support needed to restore it at the scale required.

Traditional conservation grants also have a built-in limitation: the work often ends when the money runs out. Grand Bahama needs a model that can strengthen local livelihoods, generate ongoing resources for restoration, and keep those resources working in the community over time.

REEF uses philanthropic capital to launch a restoration-linked enterprise fund on Grand Bahama. The first enterprise support package will help Shervin address a specific, solvable barrier to growth: transportation for guests traveling from arrival points to his boats. The support also helps establish a dedicated administrative operation as his wife joins the business full-time, formalize business operations with Blue Action Lab's support, strengthen branding and marketing, and create additional employment in Sweeting's Cay.

As Shervin's enterprise repays its support, those dollars stay on Grand Bahama and are redeployed into future enterprise support and restoration work. The philanthropic capital therefore does more than fund one project. It helps create a local conservation engine that supports community business growth while generating ongoing resources for mangrove, coral, seagrass, conch, and sea cucumber recovery.

Blue Action Lab will lead local implementation, including baseline data, conservation project design, technical assistance, and coordination with partners working across Grand Bahama's connected coastal ecosystems. HCF will serve as platform steward and catalytic seed funder, providing the U.S.-based charitable structure, strategic coordination, fiduciary oversight, donor stewardship, reporting, and knowledge-sharing infrastructure needed to launch, test, and document the pilot responsibly.

The long-term goal is a working model in which mangrove coverage, seagrass meadows, coral reef sites, and culturally and economically important species recover alongside local enterprises and a new generation of Bahamian marine stewards. If successful, the disciplined model can be adapted in other Grand Bahama communities and, over time, in coastal regions elsewhere.