Malta’s rural villages and surrounding agricultural land are gradually being converted into small towns that expand without limit until they reach and become part of the urban mass.
This is doubly tragic as not only are more people living in an overcrowded and unhealthy environment but Malta is also fast losing the far healthier rural areas. Land conversion is one feature of a policy of economic growth relentlessly pursued by the construction industry.
This economic growth model has been embraced by successive Maltese governments. Outside development zone land is seen to be a construction-site-in-waiting and planning authority regulations, with their pleasing green undertones, are applied to facilitate the exploitation of our unique Mediterranean island environment rather than to prevent it. Tens of thousands of building permits have been granted in recent decades on ODZ land.
New constructions and road infrastructure expansion continue to destroy precious agricultural land. The mayors of Gozo’s towns and villages have come together in protest in what looks like a last-ditch attempt to protect and preserve the island’s natural landscapes and heritage. A long list of mayors in Malta have joined ranks with NGOs to protest against further development on ODZ land in their district, the latest example being the Qormi council over the proposed Mrieħel flyover.
Meanwhile, the planned Malta-Gozo tunnel, supported by the government and the opposition, has the makings of an unmitigated ecological disaster.
The central government’s addiction to growth by exploitation of ODZ land has a totalitarian flavour to it. Civil society is forced to protest continuously on many fronts against the planning authority’s frequent approval of ODZ developments. This is not democracy, it is a government pitting itself against its own citizens.
This government’s strategy for Gozo is recycled spin from years back. Fishing and agriculture are to be preserved and prioritised, the island is to be an economic motor and a dynamic hub as well as a centre of excellence and a renewable-energy hub. Gozo is to become more prosperous while retaining its serenity. Digital technology has been equated to sustainable economic growth. The fact that a number of these statements are contradictory hardly seems to matter.
The capitalist growth model that pays no heed to nature has spread across the globe, with the overexploitation of the earth’s resources and the overkill of the planet’s biodiversity. It is not possible to have perpetual growth in a finite system such as the earth, or Malta for that matter.
The UN Security Council met last month specifically to discuss the very real threats to human civilisation posed by global warming and the mass extinction of animal and plant life and wild habitats, called biodiversity loss, all caused by human economic activity based on growth.
Malta has so far rejected an alternative growth model based on balance, focusing on the well-being of people and environment. The policy should be to bring nature into the urban areas and not the other way around.
The protection and restoration of the natural world, on which human life depends, is now being prioritised by the US, the EU and the UN. It is acknowledged that it should be the guiding principle for all decisions made by governments.
Green urban and park environments for human relaxation and wild natural habitats where humans do not trespass should be a central part of government strategy.
Policymakers are not expected to be experts in ecology and ecosystem functioning. They are, however, expected to seek and heed the advice of the scientists in this area, such as conservation biologists, and of the leading local and international environment NGOs.
The messages from these groups could not be louder or clearer.