The environment watchdog should be “more ambitious” in its new plan for the next 30 years, and the government should ensure the new strategy document does not sit “gathering dust on the shelf,” lobby groups have said.
On Tuesday nine eNGOs said they had submitted their responses to a draft national strategy for the environment which was put together by the Environment and Resources Authority.
They are calling on ERA to be “bolder and more ambitious” in its vision for the environment.
The ERA strategy was launched in September and came after some 18 months of consultation and research.
Issues such as land reclamation, over-abstraction of groundwater, demography and carrying capacity of the islands; require courageous policy decisions, they said.
ERA was also encouraged to avoid terminology “which gives the impression of progressive environmental action, but which does not properly commit fully to it”.
Meanwhile, the environmental groups said that ERA’s 30-year plan “almost completely omits reference to climate change”.
“Mitigating and especially adapting to climate change should really have been the guiding principles for such a document, given the context of urgency and emergency which faces us,” a statement read.
Strategic objectives have no specific targets
The eNGOs praised ERA’s proposals for changes in consumer patterns and raised the question of how sustainable economic growth ought to be measured, beyond GDP.
However, the document fell short of proposing any of the methods that are being adopted around the world.
The document also fell short of proposing metrics, by which progress on the achievement of the strategic objectives could be monitored.
The eNGOs went on to criticise ERA’s strategic objectives, saying that rather than specific targets, these appeared more like ancillary activities, “which are relevant and important, but which cannot be called strategic objectives”.
The ERA document contains 64 strategic objectives, but of these eight were related to research and study, four were related to ongoing monitoring, four were related to ongoing future scanning, four related to a greater commitment to enforcement of legislation and compliance, and cleansing and maintenance, and another three related to continuing maintenance (of the marine environment and of water resources) or international cooperation.
Furthermore, the document did not give any indication of how these proposed strategic objectives were going to be achieved.
Although the document promises that the publication of the strategy would be followed by 10-year action plans, the groups said that, given the urgency of the situation, the first plan should have already been published.
The eNGOs called on the government to ensure that once the national strategy was finalised, the document would be given legal status to guarantee enforceability, “to avoid another strategy document picking dust on a shelf”.
It also called on the government to give ERA a stronger voice on all issues that impacted the environment and building development.
The statement was signed by Din l-Art Ħelwa, The Archaeological Society Malta, BirdLife Malta, Flimkien għal Ambjent Aħjar, Friends of the Earth Malta, Għawdix, Moviment Graffitti, Nature Trust-FEE Malta, and the Ramblers’ Association of Malta.