A farmer, a former Shell executive, a Belco vice president, a former Ministry of Works and Engineering manager and an ecological engineer formed the panel for the final Sustainable Development Strategy meeting, held at St. Paul AME church hall last night.

The focus of the evening was on whether Bermuda could ?live within its limits?. The audience, which included Premier Alex Scott, heard the amount of land in Bermuda used for agriculture has dwindled in the past 100 years from 3,000 acres to an estimated 400, according to organic farmer Tom Wadson.

He called for the shrinking agricultural land stock to be preserved and for land use to be better prioritised for the benefit of future generations.

Practically every developed country in the world relies on a degree of foreign workers within its workforce, said ecological engineer Dr. Pauulu Kamarakafego. In Bermuda guest workers currently account for 28 percent of the workforce.

Dr. Kamarakafego said: ?Most governments have a plan whether they want the higher echelon jobs or lower echelon jobs filled by the foreign workers. Bermuda has to decide this.?

He said the biggest portion of imported guest workers are employed in the hospitality industry because the seasonality of the work dissuades many Bermudians from seeking employment in that sector.

Company director Robert Stewart remained sceptical about the worth of sustainable development initiatives, claiming they had failed in every other country where they have been tried. He mentioned as examples the former USSR, Eastern European countries and other heavily controlled jurisdictions that ended up with ?a mess, with people starving after 70 years of economic planning?.

Instead he advocated unrestrained economic activity and said the Bermuda success story was proof that such a path was the right one.

Belco vice president Linda Smith Wilson pointed out that Bermuda?s energy demands will soon outstrip the capacity of the current power plant. Demand is increasing by 1.5 percent per year which adds up to a requirement for an extra 30 to 40 megawatts by 2010.

Some of that extra energy ? around ten megawatts ? should be supplied by a soon-to-be implement scheme to capture wave energy, but that still leaves a gap in the overall supply compared with projected demand.

Former Works and Engineering solid waste manager Allan Hunt told the audience the Island produces around 1.4 tons of waste per person each year, which is more than countries such as the US.

He said it was time for people to reduce the need to constantly consume new items rather than making things, such as cars and refrigerators last longer.