The government has managed what past administration have either been unwilling or unable to do: it has well and truly placed the environment at the forefront of the national agenda.

The irony of the statement should escape no one. Since the government unveiled its plans to allot a large chuck of the country's protected Outside Development Zone land to a foreign investor for the construction of a private university that few Maltese students will attend, the environmentalists gone ballistic by the mere suggestion and the government's stubborn insistence on the Zonqor Point location. Large sections of the population have also been outraged.

All matters environmental have suddenly taken on a new meaning among the previously disinterested and disaffected. The environment has now been placed at the top of the national agenda, and judging from the public's reaction, the environment can very well be expected to continue to dominate the national discourse for a long time to come now.

Yesterday saw people taking to the streets of Valletta to express their concern about the state of the environment. One event saw the launch of the Front Harsien ODZ, which saw the outspoken Labour backbencher Marlene Farrugia and her partner, government Parliamentary Whip Godfrey Farrugia, throwing their weight behind the initiative, which will tackle the Zonqor Point issue as its first priority.

The other event focused on the widespread and quite concerning use of dangerous herbicides in the country's public areas, an issue that this newspaper has reported upon extensively in the past.

Both events are reassuring in that civil society has not thrown in the towel and given up quite yet.

The people must speak out when they feel that public policies threaten their country and their very health. What we need are more people to stand up and be counted in this respect and there is a distinct feeling that more, much more, is in store over the coming weeks and months, particularly on the ODZ front.

Figures obtained by this newspaper show that in recent years, over 2.9 million square metres of ODZ land has been swallowed up, or has been approved to be swallowed up, by past governments. But that does not render a further 91,000 square metres of ODZ land in Zonqor being given away any more palatable. Two, or however many, wrongs do not make a right.

The good news is that these past, and especially the currently ongoing, environmental debacles have placed the environment at the forefront of the national discourse perhaps more than it has ever been in the past. 

From rampant, unchecked development to the Mount St Joseph controversy, from the country's slacking on the renewable energy front to the recent spring hunting referendum, and from air quality to Outside Development Zone policies and much more - all matters environmental have been taking centre stage lately.

Overall, the country's environmental lobbies have grown by leaps and bounds in recent years, and the government, and the Opposition for that matter, will ignore this growing movement at their peril.

The main political parties would do well to take note of what the environmentalist are saying. There was a time when their numbers were negligible when it came to the grand electoral stakes, but those times are now behind us. 

The environmental lobby as a whole has grown significantly in recent years and it is only a matter of time before their clout grows enough for them to well and truly begin to set the political agenda in Malta, as has been the case in so many other countries. If their messages are not heeded, one fine Election Day, maybe not the next but eventually, one or both of the big parties could very well be in for an unpleasant surprise.

The world over, and Malta is by no stretch of the imagination any different, the political classes are quite content to preserve the status quo. It is, after all, in the establishment's interest to retain a system that is beneficial to it, and to use and abuse the environment as they deem fit.

But it is only when the public makes its voice heard loud and clear, as they did yesterday and as they undoubtedly will continue to do, that politicians will be compelled to respond.