equestrian centre in Devonshire will be cheerful today with the rejection of the plans by the Development Applications Board.

The fight over the plans -- first submitted almost two years ago -- was an interesting test for the DAB because it poised two groups of nature lovers against each other.

On the one hand, the equestrian group said it was forced to expand the existing centre because of the reduction in the number of areas where riders can enjoy their sport.

Equestrians are also responsible for keeping alive what was once a major part of Bermuda's heritage; the horse was the main form of transport for hundreds of years before the 1940s when cars were introduced.

Today, outside of the horses and buggies which ply their trade for visitors in increasingly difficult conditions around Hamilton, horses are rarely seen and equestrians are being driven into fewer and fewer open spaces where they can enjoy the sport and exercise their horses.

Nonetheless, the plans for Vesey Street would have resulted in a major expansion of the centre in one of the few large areas of open space remaining in the central parishes.

Massive excavations, loss of woodland (some scrub plants, but others valuable woods), the removal of yet another area where "resident'' and migrating birds can find refuge, and the replacement of a pleasant wooded hillside with an unscenic white gash of limestone would have been a high price to pay.

As the Island's open spaces continue to disappear, the DAB and Bermuda as a whole will have to deal with an increasing number of difficult challenges like the one that has been played out at Vesey Street.

As this dispute has shown, this is not a question of "rapacious'' developers going head to head with "tree-hugging'' or "nimby'' environmentalists. This argument was between two well-intentioned groups of people, both of whom had good reasons for taking the stands they did.

The DAB cannot make "judgments of Solomon''; someone is bound to be unhappy in contentious disputes like this one. The DAB decided in this case that the environmental damage would be too great. It was right, but that will not have made the decision any easier.