No discussion of the environmental implications of the Tucker's Point SDO can be complete without considering it in relation to all of the other S.D.O.s that are going forward to try and revive other hotel properties.All of these, from Park Hyatt and the Boutique Hotel in St. George's, through Belmont/Newstead, Stonington, Grand Atlantic, Morgan's Point and Lantana to Nine Beaches in Somerset have the same thing in common: giving our land away in ridiculously long leases if it is on Government-owned land and permitting subdivision and sale to foreigners under the Tourism zoning loophole. They all, in addition, have another common feature - they are seeking Planning approval for saturation development. In most cases this is even beyond what is permitted on Residential 2 zoned private lands!At Daniel's Head the so-called original eco-tourism cottage colony was so dense that the eco-tents even spilled over into the shallows. The current 240-year lease proposal calls for a doubling of that density turning what was originally perceived by Somerset islanders as an open space to escape to from their own crowded neighbourhoods into one that is even more densely urbanised! The rationale in each of these developments is that the large number of units is necessary to achieve economies of scale. But that assumes that all of the units can be filled with tourists and that simply hasn't happened since about the mid-1980s for a variety of other reasons including high air fares and high hotel charges in Bermuda. When built units aren't filled the effect is totally opposite because a built environment suffers depreciation and huge costs to maintain whereas an undeveloped open space is more or less self-renewing at no cost.There once was a time when all of our larger hotels and cottage colonies were self-contained within their own open space land holdings. Tourists could experience the best of beautiful Bermuda without even leaving the hotel property. Now, under the Tourism zoning loop hole the reverse is rapidly coming true. Hotels are now placing the onus on the Gvernment Parks Department and the NGO nature reserves to provide the open space experiences that our tourists expect - this at a time when our Parks and nature reserves system is barely able to cope with the growing demands of our resident population. Has anyone, let alone our Forward Planning Authority, given any thought to the long-term implications for Bermuda if all of the grand new hotel proposals were to go ahead at once in our so-called platinum period of tourism! Clearly, the implications for our service infrastructure would be catastrophic and totally unsustainable. Given, too, that we only seem to be able to afford to staff these new enterprises with imported labour, the pressure on our land resources for staff accommodation and the pressures on our narrow roads, first by construction traffic and then with the addition of our increased immigrant labour force would become quite intolerable: note that I haven't included mention of the supposed increase of tourists that these developments are intended to attract! Hardly necessary because what tourist would even want to come to a Bermuda like that?We should take a lesson from the current Egyptian revolution and use our collective voice to say NO! to any more insane SDOs. We simply cannot allow the present one to go forward. No one wants tourism to fail here but the road we are presently on is the road to environmental and economic suicide. Our elected parliamentarians are totally abrogating their responsibility and our hotels keep coming up with the same old solutions that don't work. They seem incapable of adapting to changing circumstances. The time is long overdue to look for totally new environmental and fiscal solutions. Buy Back Bermuda has inspired the community to contribute generously to one facet of the solution but our efforts so far are miniscule compared to the juggernaut of current development. How much more we could achieve in greater partnership with the Government. Some of our largest parks like Hog Bay and Abbott's Cliff were acquired by compensatory purchase under previous governments without compromising on the zonings. Could we not help to bail out Tucker's Point through this awful recession by acquiring Paynter's Hill, at least, for a nature reserve within our Parks system? And remember, Tucker's Point has already agreed to concede Mangrove Lake and that beautiful palmetto clad hillside opposite Harrington Sound Post Office as additions to the Parks system as part of their proposed SDO. In exchange I believe it would be economically and environmentally sound to support that part of the proposed SDO which proposes an upscale development on the top of Whitecrest (Catchment) Hill, because it could be largely concealed without damage to the woodlands below and could actually result in a restoration of that presently quarried out and catchment-covered site. HSBC has been extraordinarily generous in funding aspects of the Cooper's Point Nature Reserve, but that effort will be cancelled out fourfold if they are really putting pressure on Tucker's Point and Government to go ahead with this SDO in an economically misguided attempt to get Tucker's Point to repay the loan from them.Tucker's Point made a supreme effort and did, in fact, fulfill their promise to build an up-scale hotel and golf club, albeit at a significant environmental cost. Too bad that the current recession intervened to increase its debts even further. But massive additional development is not the way out. Come on, Bermuda, we can find a better solution than that, and I call once again for a march on Parliament to make our voices heard before it is too late.I am reminded of that classic parable of the Emperor's new clothes. Minister Roban is looking awfully naked, parading down the street with his latest SDO, tailor-made to such perfection that the debt so he thinks has become invisble, while everyone else in his PLP kingdom has begun to point and laugh.Unless we accept that Bermuda's open space resources have some value other than their cash-in value for real estate development we will be doomed to exactly that fate and much, much sooner than the rest of the world because of our already over-developed and miniscule land area.