When, some years ago, an application was made to develop a tuna fattening farm somewhere off Cirkewwa, all hell broke loose. No one could contemplate such a development, because of the harm people said it would cause. Those opposing the idea painted a picture of the end of the world.

The potential damage caused by the proposed project would not have been to some business employing hundreds of workers, or to some tourist development. Environmentalists claimed that the damage would be caused to the colony of Cory’s Shearwaters, a colony of seagulls, whose sleep would be disturbed by the lights and activities of the tuna pens, and whose numbers could be decimated by the birds mistakenly flying into the wiring of the tuna pens to their death.

People made such a cacophony of criticism that the project was eventually dropped. The birds were too precious to disturb. Maybe it was the right decision.

The idea has taken another turn now. Tuna pens and fish farms have since been established in various areas around Malta, including in the south, and off Qawra and at Mistra. And then came the brilliant stroke – why not concentrate the tuna pens in one area?

I do not know what the advantages of that will be. But the idea is to move the tuna pens (not the fish farms) operating at Marsascala and Birzebbuga to an area six kilometres off Zonqor Point. The proposed area encompasses nine square kilometres of sea.

That area is obviously too large for the four tuna pens or so which it is intended will be moved to this area (those operating at St Paul’s Bay are not to be moved). The area is too large not because of great generosity with the tuna pens operators. The reason is that the area is to be developed into an aquaculture zone.

Are the authorities aware of the consequences of their actions? At Cirkewwa they agreed not to have fish-farming because of the perceived threat to the seagulls. Don’t they at all see the threat to the people of Marsascala, and to the area itself, with the proposed aquaculture zone?

Marsascala is a potential gold mine for the tourist industry. If sunset is beautiful from Bahrija, people should see sunrise from Marsascala, and be impressed by nature’s grand spectacle. Instead of the spectacle of sunrise, however, the authorities want us to see the innards of tuna flowing in with the currents.

For, let us face it, four tuna pens six kilometres offshore may not be all that harmful, but a proposed aquaculture zone taking nine square kms of sea, teeming with farmed fish life, is something far more harmful.

What is preventing the tourist industry from speaking out? How can the authorities be so short-sighted as to allow such a picturesque area to be ruined?

A. Galea

Rabat.