Our natural and cultural heritage, especially as represented by the beautiful natural features of the Selmun promontory, has always been close to my heart. Since my early days as a writer some 45 years ago, I have written and published articles, poems, short stories, novels and research on the region – or because of the region. It has inspired my writing simply because I was fortunate enough to identify myself since my childhood with its natural and cultural character and the insight it gave me into the universal being. I had no choice therefore, but to write about the building of a fish packaging factory that started in earnest some weeks ago.

I have received substantial positive feedback about my writing, as well as a single comment misinterpreting my writing as political innuendo. But I was also served with an official, hand-delivered legal letter from the lawyers representing the enterprising entrepreneur or company, warning me to stop writing in the media at once or legal action will be taken against me. I was accused of causing great harm, of writing calumnies as I did not know the real facts. My first reaction was to send my answer to the same lawyers. But on reflection I realised that the reading public has a right to know what is going on. Not only that, but in all fairness I feel that the company merits an explanation as well.

I have to state from the outset that I do not agree with the factory being at Selmun at all, and I consider it a great environmental mistake – a national insult – for it to be sited only a few metres away from protected natural and cultural heritage sites. I will also state that I believe future generations will denounce us for having even attempted to do this. And they will be right. Am I at fault for saying what I did because the people supposedly responsible and duty-bound to say it and act upon it a priori did not? Like many, many others, I simply want to defend our natural environment at all costs. I believe in the need for factories and investment, and that the company making the investment is to be commended, but not in that prime part of our natural and cultural heritage. If I should be lynched for stating this clearly and publicly, then I do not know what will happen to our country.

I also believe that the entrepreneur or the company have everything absolutely in order regarding paperwork, legal documents, official permits, laws of the land, laws or regulations of the European Union, etc., etc. Is it not obvious that this is so? I never doubted it for a moment! I do not even know these people. And, above all, it is not my business to check such technicalities as expert reports, permissions, dates before, dates after, dates by, within the line, outside the line – firstly because I am not paid to do so (and there are people paid from the taxes I pay to check such things), and secondly because I do not have the time to do so. I have never suggested that the company is not in absolute order. But I strongly believe that, despite this universal perfect orderliness, the environment is going to suffer considerably as a result. That is the bottom line. Therefore there is something, somewhere, that is not functioning properly. It is definitely not the enterprising company – I cannot be clearer than that. The end-result must not be damage to the environment. I pay taxes for people to plan and discern properly and professionally. So everyone and everything is in perfect order – and it is the environment, once more, that suffers! This must not be the case. This has to stop at once, everywhere in Malta and in Gozo. That’s all. If I should be lynched for stating this clearly and publicly, then I do not know what will happen to our country.

I must also say that the land surrounding Mistra Battery has been ruined by large trucks, trailers and other industrial paraphernalia that jars so badly with the otherwise beautiful and serene environment of Mistra Bay. These are all items used in conjunction with the activity of those using this old, unfortunately dilapidated, historical fortress. And that is why I was very happy to learn that the company is thankfully providing some money to restore the fortress to its pristine glory that I remember so well from my childhood – before the fish people came along. I understand that the fortress has apparently been used by several different organisations and that the present shameful end result is undoubtedly due to the accumulated use over the years. But no one can deny the fact that the fortress and its surroundings are a veritable, disgraceful national eyesore and a very sad state of affairs for one of our historical treasures. Whenever I see the condition of Mistra Battery, can I be blamed if I look with great apprehension and deep sadness at what lies ahead for Selmun? If I should be lynched for stating this clearly and publicly, then I do not know what will happen to our country.

I once had a dream for the Selmun promontory. I’ve already written about it in media in the early 1990s, and expanded on its importance in my books on trades Snajja’ U Xogħol il-Maltin – Selmun as an open-air museum. Many European countries have created open-air museums. This phenomenon started in Sweden many decades ago and spread all over Europe as soon as countries became aware of the need to preserve their cultural heritage as a pillar of their national identity. Every time you visit one of these open-air museums, it seems that you are stepping into a different age, when society was so different, living conditions so difficult. You can walk along the main street of the museum and you walk into past trades or old sites. It is a walk into human suffering and the livelihood of different workers and their families, their fears and their beliefs. A museum like this at Selmun would show how people related to their environment, and how peasant participation in small progressive changes has led to today’s society.

Mellieħa local council is now, I am pleased to say, planning a project based on these ideas by creating heritage trails that take the visitor all around the Mġiebaħ valley into culture, into history and into the beauty of the natural environment. I do not know the details, but I know that there is already money from the European Union for this. Good! Excellent! But how will the fish factory and its inevitable activity at the very mouth of the Mġiebaħ valley impact on the project? Will it not hamper it? Of course, the company has nothing to do with this and is in no way at fault with this congruency. But something does not click at all. If I should be lynched for stating this clearly and publicly, then I do not know what will happen to our country.

There are so many other points I would have liked to write about on this issue, but I have absolutely no problem in saying that I never meant to offend people, and if I have done so, it was unintentionally. I hate the idea of hurting people, and pray God to dry me up if I ever do. If I have erred, I am not the type of person who finds it difficult to apologise! But I also hasten to add that, whenever I can, I do my God-given utmost, and use all my humble faculties, to defend our voiceless environment in all its recognisable aspects – cultural and natural. I also hasten to add that, whenever I can, I do my God-given utmost to preserve all this for our future sons and daughters who, despite not yet being born, are not voiceless and have legitimate rights that we must respect and preserve. They expect us to be responsible people. They already expect us to love them and preserve their land for them. The land, wherever it is – not only Selmun or Mistra or Ħal Safi or Kerċem – is not ours only, it belongs to them as well as to other creatures.

Ġorġ Pisani

Many years ago, whenever I went to Gozo, I always stopped by the window behind which poet Ġorġ Pisani used to sit, either writing poetry, or reading or just watching humanity go by and reflecting on the long years of his activity in society. Not infrequently, he would kindly invite me to enter his home and, together with my children, I used to spend some precious time chatting with him on so many issues. Ġorġ was passionate about the environment and knew Gozo inside out, not only historically but also in a deeper way through culture. He would associate tradition reaching us by word of mouth and sayings of people that would make the important link between past and present societies. He could humanise a hillock or a dry rubble wall by recounting endless stories and historical incidents associated with the spot.

Sometimes we chatted for hours before going for a long walk, trekking to distant places he would have suggested and described. I appreciated so much the way he linked the natural environment with history and tradition with culture, archaeology, religion or geography. His knowledge of the environment resulted in a deeper sentiment that I call love – the pure love for Mother Nature that should be manifested by the modern educated man.

This is what the old poet Ġorġ Pisani once said to me when we were discussing the indiscriminate use of our environment, and he cried as he did so:

“We have no mountains and we have no rivers as other countries have; we have very little in our small country, it is so small... But this is what we have. This is what God has endowed on Malta, not much. But this is ours. Let us take proper care of it, let us love it...”

We have to stop equating our land and our soil with development and money. Land is not money. Land is not limitless. Land has love and tradition. Land has the beauty of Mother Nature on it. We have in our times tried to stop depending directly on Mother Nature for our livelihood, but we still need to respect her. We cannot own and use every place and every empty space indiscriminately. We have to start loving and appreciating the soul of our windy garigues and rugged cliffs, terraced fields and undulating valleys, rocky coasts and sandy bays.

If I should be lynched for stating this clearly and publicly, then I do not know what will happen to our country.