In a statement, Nature Trust said that although people involved in tourism speak about the immediate short-term, money-making advantage of having more golf courses, they conveniently leave out their long-term disadvantages in terms of the unsustainable use of resources.
A 16-18 hole golf course is estimated to consume water equivalent to the consumption of 11,000 people. This is absurd, says the statement, in a country which surpassed the sustainable extraction of aquifer water in the early 1970s, uses about 13 per cent of its energy production to expensively extract potable water from the sea and is in a region which will suffer from decreasing rainfall during the coming decades due to climate change.
A 16-18 hole golf course needs volumes of pesticides to keep the turf in optimal state. This, too, is absurd in a country which is spending considerable amounts of money and effort to make its water compatible with EU standards due to the fact that it is contaminated by pollutants from intensive agricultural practices. Chemical compounds in drinking water are definitely not the ideal for public health concerns, Nature Trust said.
A 16-18 hole golf course would take up land equivalent to Hamrun or Sliema. In a country where families painstakingly search for scenic areas in which to relax, it is unacceptable that public land of great scenic beauty is given for the sole use of private profit, it added.
The NGO notes that to date, all the proposed golf courses on our islands are either on ecologically and scientifically important land (Ta’ Cenc and Pembroke) or on land that is covered by international agreements that do not allow the land to be used for profit (Habel Bellu and Tat-Tafal). It is ironic that while the tourism experts on our island talk about the need to expand into nature tourism or countryside walks, the tourism authorities do not make any use of such areas for an increasingly popular tourism niche area.
Nature Trust said it is surprised by the contention that golf courses would complement the five-star accommodation targeting the higher spending tourist, when such establishments have found it difficult to surpass the 50 per cent occupancy rate. Repeatedly, investors in the tourism industry have highlighted the country’s declining appeal due to the general degradation of the island’s environment, a lack of consumer-friendly services and increasing operational costs. None of the latter causes for a failing tourism product have been tackled seriously in the last few years.
Nature Trust appealed to all stakeholders to work together to improve a declining tourism product by embarking on long-term, sustainable projects. These include the increased use of ecologically important and scenic areas for nature tourism (nature reserves, marine protected areas, garigue parks), a halt to the widespread degradation of the countryside (green wardens, higher fines) and improved tourist services and infrastructure (transport, beaches, marinas and commercial establishments).