for a week of "brainstorming'' with staff at the Bermuda Aquarium, Museum, and Zoo, and both sides are hoping the interplay of ideas will lead to an enhanced understanding of how each island community can learn from the other.

"There are definitely lessons to be learned here for the Eastern Caribbean,'' the president and founder of the Island Resources Foundation told The Royal Gazette .

Bermuda, straddling the line between North America and the Caribbean worlds, has for generations developed its own way in terms of environmental and cultural conservation, he says.

And the result is small but first-rate institutions such as BAMZ: "There's nothing else like it in the world,'' he says.

The Island meanwhile is solidly linked to the Caribbean not only culturally, but environmentally with the extension of the reef environment and the transmigration of certain species such as green turtles or whales.

The visit is something of a homecoming for Dr. Towle as well. In 1990 he chaired a Commission of Inquiry on the future and long term protection of Bermuda's marine environment.

One of the more controversial recommendations to emerge from that was the banning of fishpots.

The fishery is an example where the Eastern Caribbean can look to Bermuda, says Dr. Towle. "You've bitten the bullet here and with great difficulty at first. But Government didn't blink, to their credit.

"And now there are signs of recovery. My hunch is it'll prove to be a very wise decision.'' Governments of the chain of islands southeast of Puerto Rico, formally linked into the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States, meanwhile have yet to make those decisons. "The Caribbean has the same problems but no politician has been willing to deal with them,'' he says.

Of particular interest to Dr. Towle are educational programmes such as Learning Through Landscape -- where the entire school yard becomes a learning ground and teachers and students work to improve the environmental and recreational qualities of their sites.

Thirteen schools are participating in the programme in partnership with BAMZ, the Garden Club, Heddington Insurance, and the Zoological and Biological societies.

"There's nothing in the Caribbean like that,'' says Dr. Towle. "Something's missing down there; a lack of concern about landscape and the environment.'' The region he adds, is a black hole of tried and failed strategies, and it may well be easier to transplant a Bermudian solution, given the shared resources.

In turn BAMZ is seeking input into two ongoing projects. The West Indies Conservation Project says Principal Curator Richard Winchell, consists of a database of researchers and work being carried out in the mid-Atlantic and Caribbean areas.

"We really want to develop some partnerships down there, and we're at the point where we're pulling the project together,'' said Mr. Winchell.

DR. EDWARD TOWLE -- Week of `brainstorming'.