Bermudians and visitors. We need to preserve Bermuda as a desirable future home for our young people and an attractive visitor destination.

Each generation is only a steward of Bermuda, a keeper of the environment, and that is a heavy burden on any Minister of the Environment. This Country is only on loan to us for our time to be passed on to the next generation. If we are bad stewards and do not take care of Bermuda, we will never be forgiven.

We have a duty to protect Bermuda rather than a right to exploit it. During our time as caretakers of our Country we should be careful not to take from the Country more than our fair share. We should not desecrate that which is only on loan to us. Think of it this way: Unless we were mad we would not enter museums and deface great pictures. Then why do we desecrate a great Island? What is the answer? Clearly Bermuda needs to develop. Tourism needs to be kept up to date.

Companies need to be housed. Bermudians want housing. There has to be space for recreation.

Yet new space for any kind of development is in very short supply. Even with the return of US bases lands, Bermuda cannot afford to be careless with its space. Yet we are careless. We are using up what little undeveloped and unspoiled land there is at places like Castle Harbour.

We seem to do this because our thinking is confused. When developers and architects think of building, they first think of finding new space. Where can we get land on which to do this? In fact, we should look first at redeveloping non-historic sites which have been developed and not toward valuable open space. There are any number of sites which are not of an historic nature or of architectural value which can provide space for new facilities. There are a number of sites where Bermuda can and should be encouraging new tourism development, notably the mess on South Shore which was chosen for the Ritz Carlton.

We need a comprehensive plan for improving our rather old tourist facilities.

Rushing off in a hurry and destroying open space at Castle Harbour in a fire sale response to a greedy Bermuda Properties is not a sensible answer. Instead of building more and more ugly office blocks in Hamilton, we should first be using what we already have and encouraging use of the old Holiday Inn as a business centre. That is entirely possible with Bermuda's size and today's communications.

Hamilton keeps sprawling to the west. It would be much more sensible to upgrade facilities and increase values by revitalising the area to the north of the City.

There will undoubtedly be commercial space in the sense of storage and mechanical and light manufacturing space on the bases. There should now be a moratorium on building for such purposes until we know what might and might not be suitable for such use on the bases.

When considering these things, Bermuda should come first, not the dollar or the developers. We have to start with a public understanding of two things: With notable exceptions, very few of Bermuda's architects can be relied upon to care anything about the "look'' of Bermuda or to do anything but their best to bend the Planning rules.

Government cannot be relied upon to protect Bermuda's environment because it is devoted to pleasing its followers...most Governments are.