Do you really care about the tussle between Astrid and Andrew, (environmental campaigner and MEPA chairman) which is what the splitting hairs type battle over the Ramla ia-Hamra application has degenerated into? I don’t.
What I care about is that this case once again amply illustrates that perception wise at least, Mepa cannot and should not any longer be both and simultaneously the conduit for our developers with all that necessarily implies, as well as the protector of our environment.
It is an unnatural role for Mepa. This dual role is implicitly discrediting its environmental credentials. Mepa needs, in fact must be split up with someone who understands developers needs handling permit applications, and someone who respects our environment in its totality heading the environmental side of things.
It was a bad idea to join these two entities or to create one entity which processes permit applications as well as protects the environment in the first place. That is what all the columnists and editorials should be focusing on and saying, though they are not, at least not much. The fact that Mepa today has almost no environmental credibility despite the huge inroads we have actually made in environmental protection bears witness to the big mistake made when assuming that in our local context one entity could protect both planning aka developers and the environment.
Yet it does need to be said. We are a very long way, environmentally speaking, from where we were five or 10 years ago. We have actually moved forward and progressed, though none of the painting everything black brigade ever admit as much.
Structures, laws et al are now in place. A new generation is growing up with the environment fairly high on its agenda. There is awareness, there is a lot of new found love for our environment, and politicians have finally learned to reflect this importance in their words and in their deeds.
And yet we are all still angry, although there have been some better decisions of late.
The move to make the Xaghra l-Hamra area a natural park was welcomed. The decision to ban spring hunting in view of the flagrant disregard of some hunters as to what they could hunt was also warmly welcomed. Why then is such a contentious application, as any development at Ramla il Hamra would be, not be treated with the wisdom of experience that government should have learned over the years from the Verdala experience, from the Ta Cenc experience, from the Ghajn Tuffieha one and others?
Perhaps cabinet ministers on a Monday should discuss the implications of certain applications with the same interest they show in what one columnist has said the previous Sunday. Our politicians are still way too concerned with a few written words and not at all able to identify the issues that are really bothering ordinary Maltese, the Mosta male and the Ferries female?
Lawrence Gonzi admitted in an excellent Bondiplus last Tuesday(I almost couldn’t believe my Maltese eyes. Three Maltese men, the PM, the Leader of the Opposition and not least Lou Bondi himself let each other talk, were never rude to each other, let us understand the arguments and sometimes the lack of them). Importantly we also heard the PM say that he was mistaken in assuming a golf course would be right in that last mentioned area before hearing the opinions of a proper environmental assessment. Of course he was not wrong at all but badly advised but at least this PM is not shy to carry the can and admit his mistakes if need be. So why not do the same with Ramla l-Hamra?
Why was the need for this assessment bypassed? It doesn’t seem right especially in an area of outstanding natural beauty. Ramla has just been voted one of the loveliest beaches in Europe. We all know what will happen once apart-hotels or whatever sprout there. First it will be discreet then it will grow. After all Marsalform and Xlendi were beautiful when I was a child. Now they are troughs of ugliness, dwarfed by more second rate buildings. That is what will happen to Ramla too once we permit development.
We all know it even if those in power pretend they don’t. Letting any development take place there is just the thin end of the wedge in an island that borders on the obese; not just in the amount of fatties we have around but in the amount of overbuilding that is characterizing this quarry posing as a nation.
So will politicians understand? We accept we have made Malta ugly. We accept most of it looks overdeveloped. But we are not, just not going to accept the ruin of the few beaches and areas that still look nice, whether it is Ramla l-Hamra or anywhere else. That is what the public is concerned about, not about the technicalities of MEPA and permit applications, not the accusations made or not made by environmental campaigners and not the boycotts by chairmen which were then not supported by the relevant minister.
We just want Ramla left alone. We want Ramla left pristine. If anything would like all those little illegal building dotted around the bay removed, like we would like all those gulags for shooting birds removed. But chance would be a fine thing.
Mepa’s role as the planner of this country, and the place you have to lobby to get a permit, is not compatible with its role as the protector and regulator of our environment. This has been illustrated time and time again over recent years. The sooner George Pullicino or the PM see sense and split them up the better. No independent environmental agency would have bypassed the need for an environmental study of the area. No truly independent agency would have failed to see that this area is not really developable.
Split Mepa not hairs, whether it’s the red hair of Astrid Vella or the more swarthy hairs of the MEPA chairman. This fight will get us nowhere, an independent environmental authority just might.
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