"It is the duty of everyone together with the government to protect the environment and to assist in the taking of preventive and remedial measures to protect the environment and manage natural resources in a sustainable manner." So says the Environment Protection ActXX of 2001. So are we all going to act on this Act?

It may be the case that Ta' Cenc does not quite raise the same kind of emotions that a car park cum-much-more raised in Qui Si Sana, or perhaps the level of anger and debate around the new waste recycling plant in Marsascala. It doesn't perhaps elicit the same kind of people power, or response from the general public simply, perhaps, because most of us never see it, never go there, never touch it.

Yet although we don't touch it enough, this does not mean it should be touched by any more development, indeed over-development. If you just go there and look around you almost cannot believe there is an application to build a new five storey hotel there, that the existing rundown hotel of 66 beds becomes one of 148 beds, that 49 bungalows are proposed along the ridge overlooking Xewkija, and 57 no less overlooking the beautiful valley of Mgarr ix Xini (with each villa taking up a tumolo of land,) and of course to top it all, the possibility of a golf course to cover up what we are not proposing to cover up with buildings.

Why oh why can't we leave well alone and protect the few bits of stunningly beautiful natural landscape that we have left on these tiny islands?

Just writing out this list of proposed developments makes me feel ill because I have seen the place, I have felt the place, I have touched the place. And so should you all next time you go to Gozo. Walk in, if you are still allowed to, stop and look around. Tell me where else in Malta and Gozo do you feel a place so untouched by our meddling human hands, tell me another place which compares with it?

And yet we are not proposing it as a Natura 2000 site. Why not? This is unbelievable when you consider that most of our southeastern coastline is included, from Dwejra in Gozo to Marsaxlokk in Malta. Ta' Cenc is in many ways superior to many of these other proposed protected areas from many angles. Why then is it being left out?

Can't we, the people, propose to the Government that Ta' Cenc be included as one of these protected sites which represent areas of the highest ecological importance? Shouldn't we act on the above quoted Environment Protection Act? Ta' Cenc certainly qualifies as an area which should now be protected, and was recommended way back in the days when the Structure Plan was produced in 1992. The very well respected consultants who produced the Structure Plan then too proposed it as Malta's first National Park, before the days of EU membership and Natura 2000 protection. What are we waiting for?

And if you do feel it is wrong to even consider developing that site, do object. Believe it or not, even though the developer has changed his plans and his mind since his original application to develop this area in 1996, the time for formal objections is over and our objections can be ignored, but significant numbers cannot be ignored, not ever.

Do something for yourselves and your children today. Go on to www.savetacenc.com and act on the Act!