Castle Harbour, famous for its world class golf course and Marriott hotel resort is also host to one of the Island largest areas of woodland, most ancient rock outcrops and caves.

While owners, Bermuda Properties Limited, have earmarked two woodland hills and part of the coast for development, the area remains one of the richest in Bermuda for endemic plant and bird species.

According to Government Conservation Officer Mr. David Wingate, the Castle Harbour area represents about 100 acres or roughly a tenth of the Island's highest quality woodland.

He says the area's ancient rock outcrops and hills riddled with caves most of which are still to be surveyed, have defied development for centuries. Early settlers were defeated by the hard grey pinnacle rock and red clay soil typical of the area and moved to more central parts of the Island where the soil was more fertile.

Up until the 1970s when bulldozers and jack hammers facilitated the drilling of foundations and water tanks, the area was virtually relatively undeveloped.

It was because of this that caves in the area which is part of the Walsingham rock formation reaching as far as Harrington Sound have been largely protected. Surveys have not yet pinpointed the exact extent of the cave system at Castle Harbour but Mr. Wingate believes it is riddled with them.

However, whenever development occurs in the area there is a risk of pollution, he says. Unlike the softer and looser limestone found in the rest of the Island and which purifies effluent from leaking cesspits, Walsingham rock is dense and pollutants seep through crevices into underlying caves, killing off endemic cave life.

And because of Castle Harbour's infertile soil and dangerous sink holes, no large scale agriculture or lumbering took place to scar the land. Cattle and goat owners kept away fearing their animals would break legs in the rocky crevices and hidden holes.

As a result, a number of native plants peculiar to Castle Harbour and unknown in the rest of the Island have been left relatively untouched. Overhanging rocks and sinkholes unique to the area favour the growth of native plant species such as Endemic Peperomia and Bermuda Bean found nowhere else on the Island.

Conserving Bermuda's woodland is extremely important, says Mr. Wingate. To ensure the survival of the Island's plants and birds Bermuda's woodland must be kept to more than 500 acres. Without blocks of natural forest, insect populations become destabilised and pests get out of control.

Bird populations also depend on thick woodland which shelters them from bad weather and offers a rich and diverse food source. Cutting back woodland does irreparable damage to the habitat not only of local bird species such as the catbird and Chick-of-the-Village but migratory birds which seek out woodland areas.

But once natural woodland is cut down, it never grows back, Mr. Wingate says.

Aggressive foreign species take over and Bermuda's native plants disappear.

"This is natural woodland that has never been cleared in this century,'' he says. "If it was cleared, the native species would never return.'' CEDARS OR CONDOS? -- If developers get their way, this woodland hill overlooking the fourth fairway at Castle Harbour Golf Course and rich in endemic plant and bird life could become the site of a cycle livery, parking lot, two-storey shopping complex and 37 condominiums.