If only environmental projects in this country were carried out with the same zeal and speed at which road-widening projects are carried out!

The frenzy to take up every last possible chunk of agricultural land and turn into concrete, steel and tarmac continues unabated and shows no sign of stopping.

These projects, spearheaded by Infrastructure Minister Ian Borg, are being planned and developed at lightning speed, to the point where communities and local councils are not even consulted about them.

Many of us, in fact, only get to learn about these plans when it is already too late. By then, the protests of residents, environmental NGOs and local councils will achieve little, if anything at all.

The latest such case is the upcoming flyover at the Mriehel Bypass which, the government says, will eliminate an accident blind spot and ease traffic in the area. The Qormi local council has been angered by these plans and has unanimously come out against the take-up up of more agricultural land.

The stretch of fields between Mriehel and Qormi is one of the last remaining green lungs in the area. Like many other buffer zones between our towns and villages, it is shrinking ... sacrificed at the altar of 'progress' and construction.

Mriehel has already turned into a metropolitan area. What was once a small industrial estate is gradually becoming a small city, complete with its own skyscrapers.

Green areas like the ones that are being eaten into now are more important than ever given the extensive development across the road. Instead, the government wants to shrink that area even further. And for what? So that it can replace soil and rubble walls with more concrete and asphalt.

We have seen this happening over and over again. When driving through the Santa Lucija underpass nowadays, one can already hardly remember that there were many trees and a jogging track there, just a few months ago. The concrete monster has cleared everything in its path.

While we understand that our road infrastructure needs improving, this progress cannot always come at the cost of our green environment.

Unfortunately, the environment always comes in second place, if not third or fourth. Green projects seem to take decades to materialise, and the only green initiative we have seen recently was the planting of flowers and bushes along the Marsa bypass - an exercise at making a concrete project look slightly less hideous.

But what about replacing the green areas lost by creating new ones? What about, for example, the Ta' Qali park enlargement project? Why is that project not going on at full speed, like Ian Borg's road projects are?

Safeguarding our green spaces and creating new ones is of the utmost importance, especially in a country where most of the countryside is privately owned and closed for much of the year due to hunting. We the common people have few places to go to, and these places are getting fewer and fewer with every passing year.

As one of its resolutions for 2021, we propose that the government shifts its efforts to environmental projects - real projects that start making up for all the green spaces we have been robbed of over the past few years.