I am very much concerned about the impact that the proposed golf course at Ix-Xaghra l-Hamra will have on the small rural village of Manikata.

It seems that a new spate of development will rock the hamlet. Around a hundred years ago, the British Admiralty stole about 90 acres of arable land from the local farming community in order to build a rifle range that was later to be developed into a Royal Marines Training Centre.

This was accompanied by gross encroachment on the farmers’ fields so that roads could be built to facilitate military traffic from Mgarr to Ghajn Tuffieha and Ghadira Bay. It seems that the story is bound to repeat itself. Fifty hectares of land will be developed into a golf course. This will probably be accompanied by further development such as club houses and holiday residences. Once the ball gets rolling (albeit in the wrong direction), it is very hard to make it stop devouring the natural landscape that surrounds our village. As if that were not enough, a road is being proposed to pass through pristine irrigated fertile land, cutting right through the Ghajn Tuffieha – Xemxija valley, leading into a tunnel that will pass beneath the village of Manikata. In order to save us the noise and fumes of passing traffic going to Ghadira and Cirkewwa, the government department responsible for road planning will take away the livelihood of some Manikata farming families. Idle farmers will then be able to enjoy the silence engulfing the village core, night and day. I am very much afraid that these two massive developments will rob Manikata of its deeply rooted culture and economy: farming.

It is said that the proposed golf course will bring about 30,000 thousand people to Malta. If we were to invest the money planned for the golf course to put our cultural, historical and artistic heritage into some order, would we not be able to attract many more than the hoped-for 30,000 tourists?

Is it right to write Manikata off the rural landscape in order to lure more tourists to the island? One may argue that the MHRA is supporting the venture, as reported in this paper on the same day that the editorial concerning the subject was published (TMID 7 July).

But I’m sorry to say that we don’t trust developers when they say that no agricultural land will be touched by the project. The government, for its part, is already planning to construct roads right through our fields. And I say “ours” because they belong to the economy, culture and well-being of the whole community that lives in this village. I’m very much afraid that now that the British Admiralty has left the islands, the Maltese government will take up the process of encroaching on the village and its farmland, a process that started in 1902, and has been interrupted (apparently only momentarily) in 1979. We people of Manikata demand to be informed. We will support development that is in harmony with our economy and culture (see for example the GAIA organic farm at Ghajn Tuffieha and its management of the clay slopes over Ghajn Tuffieha Bay). We will, on the other hand, cast a very scrutinising and wary eye over all other development that will wreak havoc with our village in the name of so called progress, killing the goose that laid the golden egg.

Mario Cardona

Manikata