The Ministry of Environment has sought final Planning approval to build a boardwalk through a nature reserve on the former US Baselands.

The Department of Parks said in the application that the proposed boardwalk at the Cooper?s Island Nature Reserve, St. David?s, would assist in environmental teaching programmes for children and adults illustrating the importance of Bermuda?s natural environment and the development of Bermuda.

Sometime during the occupation by the US military, the one-acre salt marsh was partially filled in order to create a connecting road, vehicles parking and storage buildings, it said.

However, it said the marsh was taken over by the Bermuda Land Development Company (BLDC) in 1995, leading to the commencement of a Ministry of Environment Management Plan in 2003. The 135-foot long walkway leading into the ?heart of the marsh? would be constructed out of hardwoods from a sustainable forest, it said.

This is part of the first phase of the Cooper?s Island Nature Reserve Management Plan, it said, which also included re-contouring sediment deposits that had accumulated there.