Walter Roban recently asked an important question in The Bermudian: “What if preservation was profitable?”

It is a question worth asking.

Mr Roban makes a compelling case for recognising the economic value of nature. He writes about natural capital, including wetlands, forests, coral reefs and agricultural land, and the need to move away from an economic model that treats the natural world primarily as something to be consumed.

On much of this, I agree with him.

But his article raises another question: what if preservation is inconvenient?

What happens when protecting nature means saying no to development, or when conservation conflicts with short-term economic interests? What happens when planning officers, independent inspectors or environmental organisations conclude that a proposal goes too far?

That is where our commitment to the environment is tested.

For many years, Mr Roban held responsibility for planning and the environment and served as Deputy Premier. He therefore occupied one of the most influential positions in determining what happened to Bermuda's finite landmass.

His record deserves examination.

In 2011, while Minister of Environment, Planning and Infrastructure Strategy, Mr Roban upheld two controversial planning appeals involving Cabinet colleagues.

One involved Zane DeSilva's Island Construction and proposed warehouses adjoining the environmentally sensitive Devonshire Marsh. Technical officers raised concerns and the Planning Inspectorate recommended that the appeal be dismissed. Mr Roban upheld it.

The second involved land designated Agricultural Reserve and a proposal connected to then minister Wayne Furbert. The Development Applications Board had rejected the proposal. Mr Roban upheld that appeal as well.

The controversy was serious enough that Mr Roban subsequently resigned from the Cabinet, acknowledging that the decisions had raised questions about the integrity of the Government.

But similar conflicts between development and environmental protection continued.

In 2020, the Bermuda National Trust appealed permission for a commercial quarry operation at Judkin Lane in Hamilton Parish. An independent planning inspector recommended that permission be withdrawn. Mr Roban rejected that recommendation and allowed the permission to stand.

The next year, another proposal at Judkin Lane involved a large house and swimming pool on woodland reserve. The DAB refused it and, according to the Bermuda Audubon Society, that refusal was supported by the Department of Planning and an independent planning inspector. Mr Roban overturned the refusal.

Then Devonshire Marsh returned.

In 2023, the Bermuda National Trust, the Bermuda Audubon Society and BEST appealed approval for further development at the Island Construction property at 79 Middle Road. The site is zoned Open Space Reserve and surrounded on three sides by nature reserve and open space.

An independent inspector supported the environmental organisations' concerns and recommended that planning approval should not be granted without an impact study. Mr Roban rejected the appeal.

He explained his reasoning, pointing to the longstanding industrial use of the property, the DAB's approval and the support of the Department of Planning. He also noted that recommendations from Planning and the Department of Environment and Natural Resources had been incorporated into the final design.

Those points matter. But so does the fact that an independent planning inspector reached a different conclusion.

Later that year came perhaps the clearest example: the Fairmont Southampton special development order.

The Department of Planning assessed the proposal for up to 250 tourism and residential units and described it as an “unsustainable form of development” that would result in adverse environmental effects which the applicant had failed to demonstrate could be satisfactorily mitigated.

The DAB unanimously agreed and recommended that the minister should not proceed with the SDO. Thousands of Bermudians signed a petition calling for the development to be scaled back.

Mr Roban approved it.

He considered reopening the Fairmont Southampton critical to Bermuda's tourism economy and argued that its success was in the national interest.

This illustrates the central issue: when the economic and environmental arguments collided, the economic argument won.

That is why the conversation about natural capital cannot remain theoretical.

Mr Roban now writes that “the conservation and protection of natural resources must be given equal consideration and importance as economic development”.

I agree. But that principle is tested when real development and investment are on the table.

The pattern continued in November 2023. Shortly before responsibility for planning moved out of Mr Roban's ministry, he overturned the DAB's refusal of a food truck and outdoor dining development at Lazy Corner in Flatts. An independent planning inspector had recommended dismissal, citing environmental, traffic and safety concerns. Mr Roban allowed the appeal, giving significant weight to the project's economic potential.

Two days later, he overturned another DAB refusal involving an events lawn within Southlands National Park. The board considered the proposal highly detrimental to the natural and visual quality of the Woodland Reserve Conservation Area. Mr Roban approved it. That approval was subsequently withdrawn by the Government after the Bermuda Audubon Society sought judicial review.

These cases span more than a decade and involve different circumstances. Ministers are not required to agree with every inspector, technical officer or planning board.

But when we are asked to embrace the principle that natural capital must be valued alongside financial capital, we are entitled to examine what happened when the person making that argument had the authority to put those principles into practice.

This is not about whether Mr Roban cares about climate change or Bermuda's environment. I have no reason to doubt that he does.

It is about the standard by which environmental leadership should be judged.

Environmental leadership must ultimately be measured by decisions, not declarations.

Bermuda does not lack environmental strategies, policies or promises. What we are running out of is land.

That matters on an island of only 21 square miles.

Every woodland removed, wetland compromised, agricultural field developed or open space fragmented represents a loss that cannot necessarily be recreated elsewhere. Our natural capital is finite.

Every acre matters, but not every acre is interchangeable.

Some land protects species found nowhere else on Earth. Some connects larger habitats, absorbs floodwater, protects our coastline or produces food. Some may represent the last remaining example of a disappearing landscape.

There will therefore be circumstances where conservation must take precedence because development can often happen somewhere else, while a lost habitat cannot.

This requires political leaders who are prepared to say no: when development threatens wetlands; when agricultural reserve is treated as a future land bank; when woodland reserve is steadily chipped away; and when the short-term economic case does not justify the long-term environmental cost.

Planning protections mean little if they protect land only until a sufficiently persuasive case is made to develop it.

This is where Mr Roban's argument about natural capital becomes particularly relevant.

If a wetland stores water, reduces flooding and supports biodiversity, its degradation represents a loss. If woodland absorbs carbon, provides habitat and protects soil, its removal is not simply development. It is the liquidation of an asset.

Similarly, if agricultural land contributes to Bermuda's food security, permanently converting it to another use reduces the natural capital available to future generations.

We therefore need to ask not only “What economic value will this development create?” but also “What natural wealth will Bermuda lose to create it?”

Mr Roban is right that Bermuda needs a new model.

That model cannot begin and end with assigning a theoretical dollar value to nature. It must change the decisions we make about land.

It must also eventually confront a difficult question: can an economic model dependent upon continued physical growth be reconciled with the environmental limits of a finite island?

Economic growth is not inherently incompatible with conservation. But physical growth has limits. Bermuda must increasingly find ways to create prosperity through better use and redevelopment of already developed land, greater efficiency and restoration, rather than assuming economic progress must continually consume more of the remaining natural landscape.

That means protecting what remains, restoring what has been damaged, reconnecting fragmented habitats and identifying gaps in Bermuda's conservation network before the opportunity to protect them disappears.

Independent inspectors, technical officers, the DAB and environmental organisations will not always be right. Nor will ministers.

But when expert environmental advice is repeatedly overridden, particularly where protected land is concerned, the public are entitled to ask whether our commitment to sustainability is reflected in the decisions that shape Bermuda.

Bermuda is changing acre by acre, application by application, and decision by decision.

By the time we agree that we should have protected more, there may be very little left to protect.

So yes, let us recognise the economic value of natural capital and include biodiversity, climate resilience and ecosystem services in government and business decisions.

But most importantly, let us act as though we believe it.

The measure of environmental leadership is ultimately what we are prepared to protect when something else is being offered in its place.

• Myles Darrell is the head of natural heritage at the Bermuda National Trust