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I am offering myself for election in the Warwick district where the Southlands development is proposed.

I'm a landscape contractor, so I understand and sympathize with the position in which developers Craig Christensen and his partners find themselves.

But I can't say, in all conscience, that I approve of what is proposed.

Anyone who has flown over Bermuda must have realized with the kind of shock I myself experienced, that the oleanders and hibiscuses planted along Bermuda's roads are hiding the truth of just how overdeveloped we already are.

Bermuda isn't quite a concrete jungle yet, but we are rapidly getting there. If we're careless with development, we could easily turn the island into a little Dubai-by-the-sea, with no choice for expansion but taller buildings.

Warwick is already the second most densely populated parish in Bermuda, at least in part because it is one of the most beautiful parts of Bermuda.

To take one of the last chunks of pristine, undeveloped open space in Bermuda and give it to a foreign company for a commercial purpose, seems to me to be as much of a crime as killing turtles for their shells or elephants for their ivory.

We have come too far, and we now know too much to go back to the days when we were comfortable squandering the earth's resources in that way.

I believe we have reached the stage at which we should formally confine ourselves to developing only land that has already been developed. These are called Brownfield sites. There are other acceptable sites where this particular new hotel could replace old and derelict hotels.

And I believe Bermuda should buy the Southlands property and add it to our National Parks system, so that future generations will be able to appreciate it as so many of us have done in the past.

Having said that, I must also add that I find the attitude and the actions of the Brown regime in connection with this development rather alarming.

Many people have remarked on the fixation with money that has characterised the PLP's time in power. In the case of Southlands, they don't seem to have considered anything beyond how much money this development is going to bring to the island...how much money the entrepreneurs of the New Bermuda are going to rake in and how many new foreign workers it will require.

Any PLP consideration of the impact of this scheme on Bermuda's already crowded and strained environment has been forced upon them by public outcry and pressure.

Government experts in the Ministry of the Environment and the Department of Conservation have roundly condemned the development, one report describing it as "irresponsible".

Had it not been for the determined actions of people with Bermuda's best interests at heart, the PLP Government might well already have been swigging champagne at a Southlands ground-breaking ceremony. I find that very disturbing.

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