In an effort to take back Devonshire March from illegal dumpers and cedar tree thieves, conservation crews from the Ministry of Environment recently replanted the area with endemic plants and have stepped up night patrols.

Workers completed replanting the area yesterday with Bermuda cedars, Palmetto palms and Southern hackberry trees, The Royal Gazette was told.

"We put down 55 plantings in total," Government Conservation Officer Jeremy Madeiros said.

Scattered along Vesey Street, the new trees will grow on the opposite site of the marsh's ditch in the location where Works and Engineering crews drew the ire of local conservationists last year.

While cleaning the ditch of trash which was illegally dumped there, the workers began filling the ditch which surrounded the marsh with rubble.

"They didn't realise it was all protected nature reserve on this side as well," said Mr. Madeiros.

To rectify the error, Works and Engineering cleared the ditch, fixed the side bank and have erected a fence to prevent those intent on illegal dumping from backing right up to the marsh.

"People were backing trucks right up to the water to dump," Mr. Madeiros said. "Since the fence went up we've seen a noticeable decrease though.

"It's insane that people still dump here. This is the largest marsh on the Island but generations have done it only through ignorance."

He added: "We want to get the message out, 'if you dump here, you will be caught and prosecuted'. People have already been given a lot of chances."

The area, which at one time had some of the largest cedars on the Island, has also suffered badly from cedar thefts.

"Sometimes we would come by and find a huge cedar felled in the road," Mr. Madeiros said. "I guess someone came along and caught someone else in the act of trying to steal one of the cedars. It's ridiculous."

The remote area made it a natural target but it is now patrolled nightly, he said.

"These conservation crews are the unsung heroes of the Island," Mr. Madeiros said.

The crews plant endemics year-round in nature reserves, hidden from the sight of the average Bermudian.

"We plant 500 to 1,000 cedars alone some years," Mr. Madeiros said. "These are the guys who are doing much of the work on places like Nonsuch Island."

A major replanting of endemics has also recently taken place in Walsingham Jungle following the Nonsuch model, he added.

"Sometimes we have to go into marsh and remove other plants such as Brazilian peppers and Chinese fans. Replanting can be the easiest part."

The rich peat and soil of the marsh should allow the newly planted trees to come up quickly, Mr. Madeiros said.

"It a slow recovery. It could take hundreds of years to get the marsh back to what it was in the late 1800s," he said.