I asked him about his work in places like Tanzania and the Maldives. His answer struck me. He said, "You know, the thing about places like that is that people listen to you there. You have a hard time with the developed countries because you can always hire somebody who gives you the answer you want."

He adds, "You have to understand that environmental scientists are not above having their views twisted by financial interests themselves. I have found that my experience in the third world has been more satisfying than in the first world." "What did you think about the Guana Cay reef?" I asked.

He said, "I was surprised that it was in such good shape. Most of the Caribbean has been seriously degraded to the point where you just have to say, they are in big trouble. I was quite surprised by how healthy the Guana Cay reef is. That’s why I was so shocked that these West Coast guys with the big dollars had the balls to go into a place like this."

He adds, "It should not be allowed and it should never have come up for consideration." Pausing, he said, "the proposed thirteenth fairway is a sea turtle nesting site."

I ask him, "But why spend spend time helping save Guana Cay...isn't it already a lost cause?"

We both know that I am interviewing him shortly after the Guana Cay residents had their case (in which they sued the Prime Minister of the Bahamas) thrown out of court. After his talk of the state of the world's reefs, I didn't suspect any optimism. But Dr. Risk's premonition may be coming true. He said, "Sooner or later, and perhaps maybe the Save Guana Cay people will make an impression, somebody is going to say…'look, what's going on here!' My impression is that the reef will be dead in two to three years, and that what are we gonna get out of it? For people to play golf and go home?"

Dr. Risk said, "The locals recognize this is the now the death of their way of life. One thing the developer has been clever at doing is painting the locals as NIMBYs - you know, not-in-my-backyarders. In fact, some of those people have been on the island since the Bahamas was settled. This is not their backyard, it's their front doorstep, and they will lose what is left of their traditional way of life."

He says, "Golf courses kill reefs. Kathleen will say this is a special golf course that is clean and green. If there is one chance in a million that these developers would follow through, then I would approach this differently. But these developers have already proven who they are. They've gone ahead with development without proper approvals, and they've refused to respond to some serious deficiencies in their environmental impact assessment."