We refer to your article regarding the site selection process for Sant’ Antnin (TMID, 5 July) where your correspondent quoted Malta Environment and Planning Authority chairman Andrew Calleja as saying, “Would you accept it if the plant were located in Mellieha?”
It seems that Mr Calleja is missing the wood for the trees. Our environmental nongovernment organisation, other NGOs and the local councils of Marsascala, Zabbar and Zejtun have repeatedly said that the site selection process was flawed, and this for several reasons, including the fact that alternative sites were eliminated before the selection process had even begun.
Il-Moviment Favur il-Harsien tal-Wied tal-Maghluq takes umbrage when it read that on commenting on the “alternative site” at Il-Mara, limits of Benghajsa, WasteServ stated that “establishing a waste management facility would have a negative social impact resulting from the disruption to the trapping and shooting activities”.
This broadly and plainly explains the extravagant mediocrity in which we live in. WasteServ, a semi-autonomous company for organising, supervising and controlling, the provision of major waste management facilities, on behalf of the Maltese government, prefers to give preference to bird trappers and hunters over the rights of the people of Zejtun, Zabbar and Marsascala.
These people have pooled their hard earned financial resources to purchase or mortgage their residences. WasteServ favours the man who traps greenfinches and linnets over the man who invests in his property or business.
Considering that the bird shooting and trapping activity at Il-Mara involves wildlife and not captive bred birds, WasteServ’s paradigm is not only totally absurd but also perverse. MEPA needs reminding that this preference goes contrary to the European Union Birds Directive, adopted by Council Directive 79/409 and may in itself hinder the allocation of the financial allocation for improving recycling plants in Malta.
The irony is that the proposed demolition and enlargement of the new recycling plant is being subsidised by the same European Union which WasteServ chooses to defy. We urge MEP David Casa to take note, and await his comments.
In the same report, WasteServ also had the gall to state that the disturbed land at Il-Mara, an infilled quarry used for trapping and shooting, had regenerated naturally. We are given the impression that in the stratification disturbance no plant species were lost. Those with the knowledge of how biota responds to disturbances, are aware that it is the opportunistic species that tend to propagate and proliferate in such a scenario.
Since 1998, MEPA – then the Planning Authority – has stated, in its State of the Environment report, that “apart from the actual trapping activity that affects the bird population, the building of trapping hides and lots, often with completely alien material, results in an overall degradation of the natural landscape. Apart from the hide itself, considerable patches of land are also stripped of vegetation and levelled to lay nets used for trapping”.
The then Environment Protection Department had also organised a national awareness seminar on desertification and land degradation on 3 and 4 June 1998, with Malta’s leading botanists stressing the negative impact bird trapping has on the landscape.
WasteServ’s support for bird trappers also jars completely with the mission statement of the Plant Health Department, within the Ministry for Rural Affairs and the Environment, which states that its aim is “to protect plants from harmful organisms”. Our movement attests that the Plant Health Department’s claim for the commitment “to support good works and involve NGOs” and “to encourage civil improvements and educational needs”, is factual. This, after a visit we made to their laboratories in Lija.
Environment and Rural Affairs Minister George Pullicino should ponder more about whose side he is on.
I also take this opportunity to remind MEPA of our government’s international commitment in this fora – on 12 June 1992 Malta signed the Convention on Biological Diversity during the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro and ratified it on 29 December 2000. This Convention’s main objective is to protect biologically diverse terrestrial, marine and other aquatic ecosystems and the ecological complexes of which they form part. WasteServ is in favour of maintaining practices that threaten these same systems.
It is our duty to inform interested bodies, both local and international, of this anathema. We have already initiated contact with world bodies. We have also stressed on these inconsistencies during a very long meeting with AD chairman Harry Vassallo, who listened in awe and disgust. We eagerly await Alternattiva Demokratika’s response.
Whereas the SLR report found it practical to eliminate the “alternative” sites, it has selectively dismissed any ecological attributes the dry valley beds around il-Wied ta’ Sant’ Antnin leading up to il-Wied tal-Maghluq sustain. Contrary to what WasteServ is stating, Sant’ Antnin is not an industrial zone but is designated as a rural area, with residences a few hundred metres away.
Our environmental organisation tends to appease no one, but shall strive to ensure that MEPA and the European Union Directorate take note of these inconsistencies by a company that claims to be environmentally pro-active and intends to make use of monies made available by the same EU.
Whoever thinks that the people of Marsascala, Zejtun and Zabbar can easily be taken for a ride, should think very carefully. If we were incensed before, we are now infuriated!
We are patient but shall definitely not suffer in silence. We shall indeed express our disapproval through every mechanism available. It is in our resolve to remain firm and to defend our dignity and spirit as well as the right to protect our residential and natural environment.
Steve Borg – PRO
Moviment Favur il-Harsien tal-Wied tal-Maghluq