The Bahamas National Trust with partners, The Nature Conservancy and BREEF, traveled to Eleuthera in September to revisit talks about implementing Marine Protected Areas. Fishermen and local government were educated about different types of MPAs, and their benefits. MPAs were presented as a tool for mitigating overfishing, declining fish stocks and other threats through enhanced management. This was accomplished through a series of meetings with local government and focus groups in the following communities: Governors Harbour, Wemyss Bight, Deep Creek and Tarpum Bay, engaging 55 fishermen across eight settlements. Six sites were proposed as potential sites for MPAs during the focus groups with fishermen.

The trip was funded by Oceans 5 and is directly related to the Caribbean Challenge Initiative which the Bahamas (along with eight other Caribbean countries) signed onto in 2013, to effectively conserve and manage at least 20 percent of the marine and coastal environment by the year 2020