Wednesday?s announcement by the Bermuda National Trust and the Bermuda Audubon Society that they are launching a fund to buy open spaces brings the problem of preserving open land in Bermuda into sharp focus.

With development pressure on what?s left of the Island?s open land growing by the day, it is understandable that there are many people who would be happy to see some open land used for new homes.

But there?s a risk of throwing the baby out with the bath water, and destroying what makes Bermuda special in the process.

It is worth thinking of open spaces as Bermuda?s lungs. If they are damaged, it makes it harder for the community to breathe. A landscape of concrete is barren and soulless, and in that environment, the community will be soulless too.

The destruction of open space destroys other things too. Without open land, there will be forests, no birds, no tree frogs and so on. Globally, every country must make an effort to preserve the very things that literally enable us to breathe, as Housing Minister Ashfield DeVent has noted.

Still, houses, warehouses, roads and so on have to go somewhere. Sustainable development cannot mean no development.

But Bermuda has to bring a different approach to development than it has in the past. It will mean more concentrated development in areas that are already developed, such as Hamilton. And it will mean taking different approaches to problems like transport. We simply do not have the room to allocate parking if everyone drives cars into Hamilton without a passenger in sight.

The improvements in the ferry service are already paying off, but more needs to be done.

Premier Alex Scott this week talked in London about a new agenda for sustainable development, most of which was news to the Bermuda community.

What is needed is a community-wide debate on where the Island should be in the future (along the lines of Imagine 2009) to settle these problems.