For all the words and pomp in favour of the environment and of having open spaces for the community to enjoy, sometimes it really doesn’t feel like there’s any willingness to transfer these words into action.

Even when there is some action, in the grand scheme of things, that same action starts to feel like little more than environment window dressing – or as you would say in Maltese: Bżar fl-għajnejn.

This past week was the perfect example of this window dressing. 

The government on Wednesday announced that a field measuring around 4,000 square metres in Mosta will be restored from its currently abandoned state and turned into a green lung within what is a development zone.

For a minute let’s forget the criticism on the layout of the project: it’s positive in the first place that such areas are being transformed into much-needed green lungs.  Other similar areas are also going to get a similar treatment in what is a €4.5 million investment in creating such urban green spaces.

It is a good initiative and one which will ultimately improve the quality of life of people who live in these areas – but in truth, when one zooms out and looks at the island as a whole, the projects pale into near-insignificance.

For, while the government was holding a press conference to announce that it was giving us, the public, 4,000 square metres in space for us to enjoy – another government authority was putting the finishing touches on a document which will see the taking of over 100,000 square metres in space which people currently do enjoy.

Barely two days later, Transport Malta published the first step of a concession contract offer for the building of a huge yacht marina across Marsascala Bay – a project which would take up over 100,000 square metres, cause unspeakable environmental damage to the seabed and its occupants, change the face of a whole locality, and deprive its residents of any use of the bay.

Of course, the concession document states that the project must be “environmentally friendly” – yet preliminary designs made by Transport Malta itself proposes seabed dredging in at least four places and 16,000 square metres of land reclamation.

That aside, we struggle to understand how a yacht marina of this scale can ever be environmentally friendly – Msida marina, for instance, isn’t exactly taken as the gold standard for pristine marine environments.

In truth, the project isn’t meant to cater to the environment or the residents who live in the area: as always, it’s there to cater for the economy.

The Malta Independent on Sunday revealed that a 50-year concession for such a marina could, by Transport Malta’s own calculations be worth around €183 million, and that while the concession description made absolutely no mention of preserving the quality of life of the residents in the area – it was very interested in mentioning the tourist potential that such a project would have.

Of course, life is all about finding balance – about giving and taking.  One cannot expect, however much one would like to hope, that every open space is preserved. 

However, when the give is so small and the take is so huge – one can only wonder whether those responsible for the giving and the taking want to strike any balance at all.