"You just don't want developers to destroy the neighborhood."

They don't want to hurt the animal," Mr. Caracciolo said, "but what bugs me is that all my life I've seen these developers come up here and destroy habitat after habitat after habitat.

In 1986 the organisation was involved in a protest in the town of Monmouth when it became apparent that developers had not only discovered important archaeological remains but had already destroyed them.

For example, if a developer destroys 10 acres of wetlands, he can no longer just plant 10 acres of trees nearby.

The people, he found, sometimes are left homeless because developers destroyed their houses.

Why do developers destroy all the mature trees, then plant new trees that won't look good for decades?

"He's like a bull," said Johanna Cooper, a homeowner in Pleasantville who sought Mr. Gatto's help after she discovered that a developer had destroyed a stream on her property in 1993.

But in the last 100 years, developers destroyed the crocodiles' habitat with mall parking lots, two-car garages, sea walls and poolside patios, erasing mangroves and marshes.

The object model also allows developers to create, store, and load packages, as well as create, destroy, and modify any of the contained objects.

The ecosystem is home to a handful of endangered species, chiefly the golden-cheeked warbler, and developers cannot destroy the species' habitat without a special Federal permit.