ALL over Bermuda, casuarinas, pepper and laurel trees are invading the historic fortifications of the island. The Keep at Dockyard, the largest fort in Bermuda, has not been immune to these invaders and the devastation they cause to the walls and buildings of such places.

Help is now at hand with a team of volunteers led by Jim Butterfield and Steven Petty and the large number of casuarinas on one face of the ramparts of the Keep was removed over a recent weekend.

Weighing in with rock-climbing expertise was volunteer Bryan Caldwell of the Olympic Club on Dundonald Street, Hamilton, where there is a rock climbing wall attached to the new apartment building opposite Masters Limited.

Dr. Edward Harris, director of the Maritime Museum in the Keep, is delighted with the results of this project.

"This type of tree causes a lot of damage and we are very pleased that the climbing team had offered to remove them from the walls of the Museum. We are now looking at other projects for this outstanding group of volunteers in the Dockyard and at other sites where invasive plants are destroying Bermuda's military heritage," he said yesterday.

Although casuarinas have been in Bermuda for more than a century, it was only after the blight that killed most of the island's cedar trees in the late 1940s that casuarinas were planted in great numbers.

In the last five years, says Dr. Harris, they have multiplied greatly, perhaps due to global warming or some local conditions. Aside from neglect, these invasive trees and other vegetation are at present the greatest threat to the preservation of Bermuda's historic fortifications.