Environment Minister Arthur Hodgson ends a three-day Royal Gazette special report on sustainable development by outlining his vision for the future.

Question: The Statistics Department says 6,000 more jobs will be created within ten years. Would 6,000 more people overburden the Island? Answer: It is very clear that at the moment the Island is overburdened. I say that not because we can't accommodate that number of people. Manhattan, which is the same size as Bermuda, accommodates 10 million so we can stuff 10 million on the Island. The real question is what kind of island do we want? At the moment we have traffic problems. If you don't think we have traffic problems then there is no problem. Most people believe we have traffic and housing problems. People have shelter over their heads. If you're satisfied with that, we don't have a problem, but if you believe the shelters we have are overcrowded and the prices too high and you've got to work too long for that shelter, then we have a problem. To the extent that we have those two problems, we have too many people and we can't absorb any more. Sustainability is about everything moving in tandem. We can accommodate 60,000 people but we must have in place the other things that go with that. What's happening is that we have 60,000 people and x number of cars, x residences when we have got the ratio wrong. One thing about bringing people in is that we need to bring them in at a rate, developing infrastructure to accommodate them. At the moment when I say we're overburdened, we're out of balance. This is why we have housing and other problems.

Q: Is Government in favour of keeping population as it is or does it want to see a gradual reduction? A: I would suspect that looking for a reduction in population would be sufficiently dislocative that it may not be a viable alternative. I don't think we've decided on a figure. The Planning Act I found in place envisions there will be a figure and I'm required to consider population growth. We've committed ourselves to sustainable development and the number of people has to be germane to the whole idea.

Q: How do you square that with international business growing? Is the logic that international business can't grow any further and bring in more foreign workers? A: International business is the smallest employer of non-Bermudian workers. It is by far the greatest producer of income per person of businesses we have. How we link immigration problems with international business, I don't know. The two should never have been linked because they are not the people going in the wrong direction.

Q: Who is going in the wrong direction in terms of immigration problems? A: In Bermuda entrepreneurs think they have the right to employ whomever from wherever and Government has responded, not any particular Government, and the community has accepted this as a right, so anybody who wants to employ someone goes right ahead and employs them. They advertise in the paper and no one applies so they just bring them in. We are the only country in the world that does that.

Q: How do we get around a restaurant owner who says he can't get a waiter here and needs to bring one in? A: One of the reasons I am talking so clearly and openly with you is I want to engender public debate on this. Quite frankly, I'm not sure I have all the answers. If I want to open a restaurant and I can't find anyone to work in it, I just can't open the restaurant, can I? Q: Are you saying businesses in Bermuda should move away from the assumption that they can always bring someone in if they can't find a Bermudian? A: Absolutely.

Q: If you're trying to configure your business, you're going to have to build around what you have on the Island? A: Absolutely.

Q: But not to the total exclusion of overseas people? A: No. People move around. Societies can become stagnant and get left behind and become insular.

Q: Would the quality of life diminish if we have less restaurants because people can't open them because they can't bring overseas staff in? A: There is a certain amount of dislocation when you downsize.

Q: Is this a general encouragement to businesses to look to Bermudians rather than bring in people, or are there going to be firmer restrictions on bringing non-Bermudians in? A: In the past we've tended to just look to the economic impact, but we have to look at these other things. I am not offering a solution, (so much) as asking the public to recognise that the right solution can only come about when you consider all these things. You can't make the assumption that if I need an employee I should have the right to go and get him because when that employee comes here he is not only impacting on my business, he is impacting on a lot of other people.

Q: It's a general encouragement rather than a policy change to say there will be restrictions on foreign workers? A: Yes, it's a way of looking at things. We're not so much changing policies as saying we've got to consider other things. The assumption that you have a right to impact on others without their having an input into it is not on.

Sustainable development involves a process that gets away from the idea that this segment is right or wrong. That's where we get into problems when we isolate things and put business in one drawer, the BIU in another and environmentalists in another. The reality is we have got to bring together all these competing interests and find the common ground. When the community accepts that this is the way we've got to deal with population, then businessmen, as part of the community, are in line too.

Q: Do you think that by doing that the economy can remain as vibrant as it is? A: If we do that the economy will become more vibrant. I'm concerned about the bottom level. If we can make prisoners more productive, the whole level goes up. If you take a person who can't type and teach them to type, they are more productive. When you just look at economic factors, you may improve your quality of life, but what are you doing to everyone else? Q: Short of having less people, therefore reducing demand therefore the price comes down, how can people on low incomes have affordable property? A: We're working on it now and have several programmes. One is Government subsidies.

Another is building houses at subsidised rents. A third is to facilitate the purchase of houses by providing mortgages.

Q: Bermuda is very suburbanised with very little clustered housing. If you could turn the clock back to the 50s or 60s would you have encouraged more condo or apartment complexes in places like Hamilton, St. George's or Somerset.

A: I don't think there's any question about that. There is an existing economic base, the pattern of land ownership, which we have to consider. Then you have to consider that's what people want. The ideal of every family is to have their own cottage, but there have been moves towards condos. I'm sure that style of living will become more and more as we go on.

Q: Will you look at compensation for landowners no longer able to develop because of zoning changes or compensation to encourage people to keep these spaces open? A: Yes, in fact there is provision at the moment in the Act. Constitutionally we cannot simply expropriate someone's property but we can regulate its use.

We don't have the money to run out and buy all the property we would like to therefore we have to regulate it in such a way that the owner can get some use without us being liable for payment. I don't want to prejudge the outcome of the Open Spaces dialogue, but there are other possibilities such as the purchase of development rights from owners. You can still have your land but you can't build on it. We've paid you for the development rights. Another possibility is to have people developing the land to pay for undeveloped land.

If you have the right to develop there is a price tag and that is the price tag that will pay for the chap next door who is not developed? Q: If someone buys a field to build a house and the guy next door decides not to build, the person who buys the field for housing may have to pay some cost to his next door neighbour to compensate him for keeping that space open? A: That's right.

Q: That's under consideration? A: Yes.

Q: The National Trust questions whether the right to develop should still be considered a right.

A: Most people in Bermuda believe land has a value and the constitution says you can't take someone's land without compensation.

Q: Would you consider a change to allow people to build higher? A: We certainly have to give consideration in order to preserve the footprint.

We could possibly go higher.

Q: How do you see the infrastructure catching up with population? A: Intensive as opposed to extensive investment. When you're running a farm, instead of cultivating as much land, you get a machine so that one person can do more work. Instead of having another person, we have a better trained person. What we have we use more productively, it's quality we're looking for.

One reason we're embracing e-commerce is that to get the same buck you require less resource in terms of land and people use.

Q: A corollary of that must be that you improve the education system to get more Bermudians in these jobs? A: Absolutely.

Q: What will Bermuda be like in ten years' time? A: The population will be about the same. We'll do things about education to make more people productive. In international business, more Bermudians are going to become involved. I have been very encouraged since the flap about expat-CEO by the number of people who have come on board with the concept of sustainable development. Bermuda can be an ideal world. We're still small enough to track all the pieces that fit together. We can be an ideal place in terms of income. We have one of the highest incomes per capita but we still have incomes at the bottom nowhere near the average. Sociologically we can become an ideal society. This country with its racial balance can become a truly integrated society. Most societies where you don't have ethnic disputes are where you don't have ethnic people, or may have a small proportion of ethnic groups. Bermuda has a large number of both groups sufficiently homogeneous, with no language problems, the same dress codes and similar religious beliefs. We can set the world an example. We live in a crowded island but with the appropriate measures we can protect it. I believe by the time we have finished the Green Paper on the environment, we will have a pristine environment in which the next generation will have every opportunity that this generation had. If we take some hard decisions and take the road less travelled, we'll be on a smooth road. We've brought up children to believe there is a road to travel where you don't pay a price. If this generation is prepared to put the work into Bermuda we'll be OK. People are going to come to this country to see how we did it.

"It is very clear that at the moment the Island is overburdened.'' "I would suspect that looking for a reduction in population...may not be a viable alternative.'' "If you have the right to develop there is a price tag.'' "You can't make the assumption that if I need an employee I should have the right to go out and get him because...he is impacting on a lot of other people.'' Photos by David Skinner