The environmental charm offensive

Shortly after the second massive environmental protest which took place on budget day, the government announced that the White Rocks site would be turned into a national park. This was tied with the government’s other pledge to establish another park at Manoel Island.

It is worth remembering that the government only announced it would take back Manoel Island after a prolonged struggle by environmental groups and local communities. Likewise, it has not gone unnoticed that the park at White Rocks was declared in the wake of widespread environmental unrest triggered by the government’s proposed destructive planning reforms.

Both announcements are welcome news, as they may keep these sites out of the hands of speculators looking to profit from public land. That said, nothing can be taken for granted with this government, and it remains to be seen what form these parks will ultimately take.

As always, there is a concern that some commercial element could be introduced that would compromise the promised parks. For now, environmental groups are willing to give the government the benefit of the doubt but they will be monitoring any manoeuvres closely.

The government’s ability to establish parks and designate protected sites can be a highly effective tool for environmental conservation and, if anything, it has been severely underutilised by this administration. This reluctance stems from its hesitancy to impose environmental constraints on private land, even when such land clearly warrants protection to preserve the country’s natural landscape.

Indeed, one can say that the scheduling efforts which took place in previous years have now ground to a halt.

One need only recall the groundbreaking public domain legislation passed in 2016, which introduced a robust form of environmental protection. Yet, when ENGOs proposed 24 sites for designation, the Planning Authority undermined the entire initiative by arguing that the sites were unsuitable because they were privately owned, as if the government lacked the power to regulate land use.

Subsequently, the Planning Authority proposed its own smaller set of sites, which included Comino. But, in the end, nothing was scheduled because this would have stopped the rapacious commercialisation of Comino, which was being planned by the government’s friends.

The emphasis on the White Rocks and Manoel Island parks is an extension of efforts which have been going since the last election to rehabilitate underutilised areas in our localities and provide open spaces such as gardens and other recreational areas. This is a laudable objective and valuable work has been carried out by various government agencies in the past few years.

Nothing can be taken for granted with this government- Ingram Bondin

However, this approach is undermined by one major contradiction – it is at odds with every other government policy and effort to loosen planning regulations and let developers have their way to continue to destroy our towns and villages. Indeed, the open spaces initiative seems intended as a token compensation for this very destruction.

While developers are allowed to continue ‘managing’ the development zones as they see fit, public agencies are left to cater to an exhausted population, applying cosmetic fixes to our disfigured towns through public gardens and similar measures.

It is very clear to us that, during the last couple of years, something has snapped in Maltese society and that people have started to regard the siege of our towns and villages as increasingly intolerable. This is the direct result of bad planning policies enacted during the past few years, and one shudders to think what lies in store if the infamous planning reform comes into force.

People are growing increasingly cynical of initiatives to create more open space as these efforts cannot hope to keep pace with what we are losing.

We clearly do not need a developer’s wish list; what we need is serious reform, one that, for the first time in years, places the public interest above the desires of individual private actors.

The current system, which allows private interests to shape our towns for their own gain, is not planning ‒ it is a complete abdication of it.

The resulting disharmony and degradation of our towns and countryside are now plain for all to see.

We are now in our third week after the massive budget day environmental protests. Despite what government sources have suggested to the media, ENGOs are still completely in the dark about what the final version of the planning reform will be. One wonders what is happening behind the scenes, especially because the ‘best budget ever’ does not seem to have had the desired result.

The planning reform seems to have lost so much momentum that a third confrontation with ENGOs hardly makes any political sense. But we have to admit that nothing surprises us anymore at this point.

Ingram Bondin is president of the Ramblers’ Association of Malta.