Blue lagoon is once again in the spotlight for the wrong reasons. It's as though we cannot go a single summer without a controversy erupting.

Last year, activists had taken action and rightly protested against the take up of too much space by deckchairs and umbrella's from private operators in the area.

Moviment Graffitti had gone on site and removed them one day in June, retaking the bay back for a day in protest. They organised another protest action in August that year. It was a move that both drew media attention and also sent a strong message that enough is enough.

That message seemingly got through. Tourism Minister Clayton Bartolo had, earlier this year, said that "only around 35% of the deck chairs that were present last year would be present this year at the Blue Lagoon."

The minister has now said that the jetty is clear for public use.

But it seems that one of the operators just shifted deckchairs to another area, setting up shop on a spot which, the Times of Malta reports, is near protected garigue. Tourism Minister Clayton Bartolo said that the operator in question was relocated to the new area.

This has resulted in another controversy. Moviment Graffitti is demanding the immediate removal of deckchairs on garigue land, and that any request for a new concession is withdrawn by the applicant or categorically refused by the ERA and all the authorities involved in the process. The NGO said that the public will be forced to intervene and protect Comino if the authorities do not take action and stop this situation.

"This situation does not only run counter to the demands put forward by organisations and the public in the protests that took place last summer, but also exposes the weakness of ERA - the authority responsible for the safeguarding and conservation of Natura 2000 sites - and that of the Minister for the Environment, Miriam Dalli, in the face of commercial forces that are posing a very real threat to our natural heritage," the NGO said.

Comino is a Natura 2000 site. Yes, it has some beautiful tourism areas, but are we taking care of it? The answer, quite frankly, is no.

One here must mention the hotel and bungalows which were built years ago on the island, and the controversy surrounding the plans for a project that the developers say would not damage the environment and will restore an area which has been neglected for years, while environmentalists insist that the footprint will grow and that the further commercialisation of comino would cause more harm than good.

One must also mention the sheer number of people who set foot on Comino, and in particular Blue Lagoon, during the summer months. In recent years Blue Lagoon has been overly jam packed with people. It is understandably a tourism hot spot, but at the same time, are we over-exposing an area which is arguably a natural national treasure and what kind of impact in the long-term will having so many people visit the spot daily have?

Let's not forget that Comino is also a Natura 2000 site, a bird sanctuary, and a Special Protection Area among other things, according to the Environment and Resources Authority's map server. We need to protect its environment.

One of the demands made by Graffitti last year, was to launch work on a policy document for Comino which includes carrying capacity. "This policy must prohibit large ferries (such as catamarans) from entering Blue Lagoon and place a limit on the amount of ferries that can daily enter the bay."

Well, a study by Deloitte dated 4 July 2022 had found that "peak beach density for Maltese beaches are estimated to exceed the average for Europe (6.8 persons per sqm per day). Blue Lagoon and Golden Bay appear to be under particular stress. Comino is a sensitive biodiversity hot spot and a Natura 2000 site, already at existing visitation rates, visitors have been reported to frequently encroach on protected areas, trampling vegetation and leading to soil degradation & desertification, and increasing litter, noise, dust, and light pollution -all of which undermine biodiversity and deter wildlife. An unambiguous and enforced visitor management plan for Blue Lagoon appears warranted already at 2019 volume levels."

But the report highlighted that it is not only the environment that is impacted, but also the visitor experience. "The situation in Blue Lagoon appears particularly worrying. Assuming that visitors on average spend 4 hours at the beach and spreading the load over 12 hours indicates that in peak months, visitor density reaches 2.62 m2 per visitor throughout every hour of day light. No benchmarking is required to understand that the visitor experience is impacted by this level of visitor density."

The question as to whether the number of visitors per day to Comino should be capped is, of course, a sensitive and controversial one.  But surely we should be having this discussion. After all, the ultimate goal must be to preserve Comino in its natural state and to ensure that our impact does not negatively effect the island in the years to come.