NGOs and independent candidate Arnold Cassola have called for the cancellation of the Marsalforn road project, as the Ministry for Gozo announced that it was going to start uprooting the trees along the Victoria-Marsalforn Road to make way for the widening of the carriageway.
Meeting on Marsalforn Road this week, Cassola, along with Luke Said of Għawdix and Astrid Vella of Flimkien għal Ambjent Aħjar, denounced the Marsalforn Road plans as damaging to the environment, unjustified and dangerous to traffic.
The project to straighten and widen the existing road that meanders in along the natural curves of the valley-bed will take up 10,000 m2 of agricultural land, destroy hundreds of trees and iconic landscapes. Although the focus has been on the 230 protected trees to be uprooted, the full tally is at least 825 trees of which only 225 will be transplanted, which is no guarantee due to Malta’s abyssmal survival rates of transplanted trees. Given Malta’s lack of trees, the eNGOs maintain that ‘every tree counts’ due to the importance of trees to human health, and the fact that non-indigenous trees also support a rich natural habitat of surrounding flora and fauna. Moreover trees are presently our only means of reducing air pollution while mitigating Climate Change.
Arnold Cassola condemned the project as “a disaster” due to the extent of destruction of agricultural land and trees, urging the public to speak out and act, to prevent Gozo from becoming another ‘island of concrete’.
Luke Said, Deputy Chairman of the eNGO Għawdix highlighted the irony of marketing Gozo as ‘the island of villages’, then tearing up a valley to run a motorway between two localities. Said highlighted the fact that contrary to the Ministry of Gozo’s claims, the road is not prone to traffic congestion, but straightening and widening it will make it more dangerous, especially to cyclists. He protested the fact that although two-thirds of it falls within the confines of Zebbug, the Zebbug Local Council had no say in the planning process. He criticised the choice to upgrade this road, when others, such as the main artery leading to the Park and Ride, are in much worse state.
Said challenged the authorities to define the plan for Gozo and to give residents a real chance to have a say in a more sustainable future for Gozo.
Astrid Vella explained that Flimkien għal Ambjent Aħjar had appealed the permit for this road, however the appeal was refused in spite of the permit being based on outright lies, like the claim that the road is a danger hot-spot, when the Police denied this. Vella expressed her disgust that the Environment Resource Authority, responsible for protecting Malta’s environment, approved this damging this project. Vella mentioned the fact that in its tree census, ERA left out 39 protected trees and asked whether it was because ERA personnel were not capable of identifying them or, worse still, because they wanted to hide them from the public. This is very worrying as the Narrow-Leaf Ash is extremely rare, only growing in riparian water-valley locations which are equally rare in Malta.
The eNGOs and Arnold Cassola concluded by highlighting the fact that EU funds are being used for this project which undermines all EU values of protection of bioderversity and reducing Climate Change. Malta is soon to receive funds for rehabilitating nature through re-wilding, yet at the same time we are still destroying natural areas for unnecessary projects designed purely to enrich road contractors.
The eNGOs and Arnold Cassola called on the Ministry for Gozo and Minister for Planning to call off this project while there’s still time, and start to prove Malta’s environmental credentials.