Turning Marsh Folly into a large recreation park and creating sidewalks across the Island to allow people to walk to shops and to exercise safely are two suggestions for giving Bermuda a more sustainable future.

The focus for the third public meeting to discuss the draft Sustainable Development Strategy and Implementation Plan, which takes place tomorrow evening at the Bermuda Industrial Union building, is ?Protecting and Enhancing our Environment and Natural Resources?.

Every three years Bermuda loses an area of open space the size of Ferry Reach Park to development, but the whole question of how to protect what open green spaces still remain is up for discussion as the latest section of the 460 page draft plan is put back before the public for further suggestions and ideas.

A key consideration will be whether it is time to call for a temporary ban on new building development on the Island, except for building on brownfield sites, until a comprehensive assessment of the way Bermuda wishes to progress is devised.

Amongst other ideas are to link up the Railway Trial and tribe roads to create a network of routes for people to use for leisure and exercise and to buy up open spaces in a similar fashion to the successful Buy Back Bermuda campaign of 2004, which saved a previously privately owned three-acre portion of Long Bay in Sandys from being developed.

Private landowners might be paid compensation in return for protecting their open spaces, possibly with a stipulation to allow a degree of public access.

Sustainable Development Round Table member Stuart Hayward will moderate tomorrow?s meeting, which is expected to feature panellists including Colin Campbell, Danny Farias and Aideen Ratteray Pryse and Arthur Hodgson.

Mr. Hayward said he was encouraged by the public interest shown at the two previous meetings in the series of five, which have attracted packed turn-outs.

?Everyone has been pleased with the attendance. Whether everyone has read the document we don?t know. But these meetings are at the middle of a process.

?We are saying ?Did we get this information we collected, right?? We are checking back with the people,? he explained.

?After that comes the final phase of the plan. It is an exciting process and is the first time that I am aware of a country being asked for its ideas to go into a planning document.

?I understand that the venues we are using are not the same as the first consultation when we went around the Island, but we are committed to listening to every comment. We are open to listening one on one.?

Another area likely to attract discussion is the future of Morgan?s Point. The former US Naval Annex, has lain disused and out-of-bounds for more than ten years. It is in need of an environmental clean-up before it can be brought into public.

Should it be left as a ?land bank? or used as an area to soak up developments that might otherwise use precious greenfield open spaces elsewhere on the Island? And there is the question of how to protect the Island?s marine and land environment and natural resources. This could be done in the form of fines, possibly by creating an Environmental Enforcement Agency with the power to issue on the spot tickets as well as take offenders to court.

Regarding efforts to protect Bermuda?s bio-diversity one idea cited in the draft document is to draw up a comprehensive list of invasive plant species that will be banned importation onto the Island and encouraging residents to plant native and endemic species.

Tuesday?s Sustainable Development meeting takes place in the E. F. Gordon Memorial Hall at the Bermuda Industrial Union headquarters on Union Street starting at 6 p.m.