Flimkien ghal Ambjent Ahjar welcomed the new proposals to amend the Development Planning Application Act, which it said would “hopefully result in a new chapter for MEPA’s up till now dysfunctional and powerless enforcement arm”.

The new scheme will entail monitoring of any ODZ (outside development zone) constructions through detailed and continuously updated aerial photography of the country.

This, FAA said, was “a strategy already proposed by (Environment Minister) George Pullicino last year in Cabinet but which did not gain sufficient backing among MPs at that time”. FAA said it therefore could not fail to be pleased at this significant change in heart at Cabinet level last week when the scheme was finally given the green light.

Now that the issue of illegal developments is being addressed, FAA “calls for a similar review of the approval procedures for major projects being planned Out of Devel-opment Zone, especially the new environmental impact assessment amendments which make it easier to build such structures legally in what little is left of our countryside or unbuilt shoreline.