The last Labour government of 1996/98 placed the ministerial portfolio for environment under the Minister for Foreign Affairs. If elected to government, Joseph Muscat now proposes to place responsibility for the ‘environment’ with ‘resources’ in an Environment and Resources Authority, effectively breaking environment’s close link with ‘development planning’ by establishing a separate Planning and Sustainable Development Authority. Is this wise?
The temptation for a newly elected Prime Minister Joseph Muscat to move the pieces across the chessboard of government into new combinations and permutations will be attractive. There will be the irresistible feeling of wanting to stamp a new look on government. There will also be the need to hand out ministerial portfolios to as many political allies (and potential rivals) as possible in order to placate their vanity and repay political debts.
Joseph Muscat has labelled the Gonzi, post-2008 restructuring of Mepa a “ spectacular failure”. I utterly disagree. Having watched closely the way environmental and planning issues have been handled in this country over the last 17 years, and having studied the history of unmitigated development planning blight of the last 50 years, I am in no doubt that, for the first time, we have a system in place since 2009 which, while not yet perfect, is a great improvement.
A new Development and Planning Act has been passed. Crude political interference in the planning process has been notable by its absence. Mepa is now better led, better coordinated and a more cohesive unit, and its boards and commissions are manned by high calibre individuals. Confidence in the planning process has improved. A national environmental policy has been put in place with clear targets for improvement. A law on sustainable development has been enacted.
All of this is not to say that there are no complaints about the system, or that things do not sometimes go wrong. There are and they do. However, while there are still areas for improvement, it must be accepted that no human process as sensitive as one that is so dependent on human judgment and which affects individuals so directly – whether construction magnates, businessmen, architects, environmentalists or householders – will ever be above reproach. That is in the nature of the beast.
To promise, as Joseph Muscat has, that bureaucracy will be reduced or even eliminated, is far too simplistic. Due process – which is the bedrock of all good administration and planning – demands that rules are laid down and adhered to. In something as complex and multi-layered as development planning, this is inevitable. Reducing red tape is desirable, but easier said than done. If the proper checks and balances are to apply, as good environmental and development planning requires, the rules of engagement must cover all likely eventualities.
The centrepiece of Joseph Muscat’s proposals for environmental protection and development planning is to separate the two functions by placing them in different authorities. There are of course close synergies between the four elements of resources, sustainable development, planning and environmental protection. The argument turns on how best to mix and match them.
The reality is that government can be made to work in any number of different combinations, as the last Labour government’s clumsy linkage of foreign affairs with the environment showed. One can have any combination of permutations, and the civil service will make them work to the best of its ability. Having environment with foreign affairs in 1996/98 “worked”, but at what cost?
The crux of the issue must surely be how well different elements work together in practice. What is the most logical, efficient and administratively effective way of governing the country? This is not simply a matter of environment or planning, resources or sustainability. It is essentially a matter of good governance. The bottom line should be that the combination of functions chosen should achieve the best results for the sake of the country.
The Labour Party’s proposal to detach ‘environmental protection’ from ‘planning’ is misconceived. What the last 50 years of largely uncontrolled, rampant development have demonstrated (remember, for the first 30 years Malta had no structure plan in place) is that the impact of excessive and inefficient land use has exacerbated all Malta’s environmental problems. It has created collateral damage in a number of related areas from the coastal environment to cultural heritage sites, from air pollution to water and energy conservation and the natural habitats of the island.
The prime objective of any sustainable environmental and development plan must be how Malta uses and shares its tiny land. Almost 25 per cent of the land is built up, compared with a European average of under 10 per cent. Over the last 35 years, agricultural land – Malta’s major remaining natural environment – has been reduced from almost half to one third today. The essence of good “spatial planning” in Malta hinges around land use.
This argues overwhelmingly for retaining the structural advantages of keeping environmental protection and development planning together, not de-merging them. While there is inevitably a creative tension between planning and environmental protection, to separate the two functions would undermine the vital need for close coordination and integration between them. In the Maltese context, they constitute two sides of the same coin to an extent not found in larger countries.
It makes over-riding organisational sense for the two to be part of the same authority, led and overseen by the same management hierarchy, where planning and environmental protection meet and integrate. Areas of disagreement will always exist. But it is surely better that such disagreements are resolved in one place, under the aegis of one leadership structure. To split them would almost certainly lead to the two authorities working towards different agendas instead of, as now, working together to find the most workable solutions.
The natural and the built environment are inextricably joined at the hip. What happens on development planning affects the natural environment, and vice-versa. Competence on bio-diversity and nature protection, air pollution and coastal management are as much an intrinsic part of land-use as development zones and adherence to planning regulations. The Directorates of Planning and of Environmental Protection need to coordinate their approach to development proposals together, with the environmental directorate acting as an effective check on the planning directorate within the laws laid down under the Act. There is a well-founded concern that to separate them could only benefit the construction lobby, which currently finds itself constrained by environmental prohibitions placed on development plans.
The basic objective of Malta’s Structure Plan is that of “optimising the physical use and development of land, which respects the environment” while ensuring social needs are met. Such is the importance of alleviating Malta’s land-use problems that the concern today should not be whether or not to separate environmental protection from development planning but, as importantly, how to ensure that the other key environmental challenges of water conservation and other natural resources, the reduction of air pollution and the involvement of transport infrastructure in spatial planning are brought under one, over-arching environmental and planning umbrella. This points ineluctably at the Malta Resources Authority and the Transport Authority being merged organisationally with a wholly integrated Malta Environment and Planning Authority.