PM Joseph Muscat has announced that the government will be launching the biggest open space project in a generation. That’s all well and good, but should it not be the other way around? Should not the percentage of land in Malta which is open spaces be much bigger than the built up and ruined habitat? Do we need managed open spaces when we can have natural areas in which human beings are part of the ecosystem?

All the unspoilt landscape that we have left is being threatened with artificial lighting and construction, and disturbed with yards for parking machinery and batching plants. What natural habitat we have left is being hemmed-in all around in such a way that wild fauna cannot survive, or will not stop here during migration.

We are the most densely populated country in Europe – and with a large number of vehicles. Instead of putting a cap on the number of vehicles or giving incentives for other modes of transport, we widen the roads. We should develop an underground. We should give incentives to increase the birth rate of the Maltese and reduce our dependence on imported labour.

The two biggest political parties have ravaged and mauled our natural environment. They are too close to big businesses and the planning laws are too loose, so the Planning Authority board can decide according to its wise discretion. The PL and PN have weakened environmental NGOs, or made them dependant on  government funds, and try to silence the small political parties that campaign for the natural environment.

Even in our education system and mass media, the natural environment features only a little and has a very small, unimportant share and when the environment is mentioned it includes waste management, clean air and not littering the pavements – all of which is good. But the essential part of the natural environment is our natural habitat: the ridges, the cliffs, the garigue, the maquis and the coast. If this goes, it will be gone for ever. We cannot remedy it and we cannot import it.

We are attacking what makes us Maltese: the village core and our traditional houses. We are disfiguring our villages and towns. And Malta will be changed for ever.

The disfigurement of the natural environment and our Malta is a social sin in which individual citizens participate. You have the option in your hands to influence the future.

 
Joe Portelli

Nadur