Nonsuch Island is home to many of Bermuda’s rarest and most endangered plant and animal species and is Bermuda’s single most important nature reserve.
Access to Nonsuch Island
Nonsuch Island is closed to public access. Access is only permitted under the supervision of personnel authorized by the Department of Environment and Natural Resources.
The Department of Environment and Natural Resources offers and authorizes educational tours for schools and environmental groups only. Email environment@gov.bm to make arrangements.
For details regarding tours of Nonsuch Island for the general public, please go to www.environment.bm/nonsuch-tours
The Nonsuch Island Project
The Nonsuch Island Project is one of the earliest examples of an ecological restoration project in Bermuda, aimed at restoring the entire ecosystem with all of its associated plant and animal communities in their appropriate habitats.
The project was started by Dr. David Wingate, Bermuda’s first Conservation Officer, in 1962. It aims to restore a small section of Bermuda to what the island would have looked like, in terms of flora and fauna, before it was discovered and settled by humans. The project:
- Prevents non-native, introduced, and invasive plant, animal and insect species from coming out to or establishing themselves on Nonsuch.
- Removes, wherever possible, non-native plants or animals that have already managed to reach Nonsuch, or that manage to reach the island annually (e.g. as seeds in the droppings of birds).
- Replants seeds or seedlings of native and endemic plant species in the appropriate habitats on Nonsuch, to re-establish the original plant communities that would have existed on pre-colonial Bermuda.
- Re-introduces native or endemic birds, animals, or marine organisms that had been lost on Nonsuch due to human activities or the impact of introduced invasive species. For example, the Yellow-crowned Night Heron, West Indian Top Shell, Land Hermit Crab ,and Bermuda petrel or Cahow (Pterodroma cahow) have all been successfully re-introduced to Nonsuch as part of the management program after being eradicated from the island by the early settlers in the 1600s.