Trunk Island, Harrington Sound may one day become Bermuda?s next Nonsuch thanks to a generous land donation.

The Bermuda Zoological Society (BZS) announced yesterday that it would restore Harrington Sound?s largest island back to its natural state thanks to a donation by the late Frances Winslow Gardner.

Director of Conservation Services Jack Ward said the seven-acre island was right on the Aquarium?s doorstep, and offered a fabulous opportunity to embark on a habitat restoration effort to replant native and endemic species and cull invasive species.

?Through the kind-heartedness of Fran Gardner we have the opportunity to include excursions to Trunk Island in our education and conservation programmes, which is not only exciting, but also important for our entire Island environment if we are to change present patterns of local land use,? Mr. Ward said in a BZS release on Thursday. ?It?s essential that students experience real-life examples of what we can lose in our community through unrestricted growth and development.?

Miss Gardner owned two-thirds of the private island and spent up to six weeks a year there for almost 50 years making journals of bird species and battling against invasive Brazil Pepper and Casuarina plants, it said.

Her last stay on Trunk Island was in September, 2002 and following her death in 2004, her ashes and the ashes of her parents, Rita and Warner Gardner, were scattered into Harrington Sound from Trunk Island.

Hannah Gardner said her sister always lived lightly on the land. ?Her gift to the BZS is a product of that consciousness,? she said. ?Our parents began taking their four children, including Fran and me, to Trunk Island for the summer in 1955. It was a place that she loved and cared very much about its future.?

BZS president Robert Steinhoff said a commemorative plaque had been placed on Trunk Island in Miss Gardner?s honour.