Over the past few days we have witnessed what Infrastructure Malta has been up to in Dingli. Infrastructure Malta, or more likely ‘Destruction Malta’, continued butchering trees, some of which were 300 years old, taking away farmer’s fields and putting a medieval chapel in danger.
This is only the latest episode, because lately we have seen ‘Destruction Malta’ being responsible for similar atrocities in Żebbuġ, San Ġwann and close to the Victoria Lines in Mosta.
At this stage, one asks: has IM been vested with the legal power to send the bulldozers first and expropriate the land later? In a nutshell, a government entity which is supposed to ensure that our environment is protected, is doing the opposite and has become a main protagonist in environmental devastation.
As a member state of the EU Malta is obliged to designate Special Areas of Conservation (SACs) under the EU habitats directive and Special Protection Areas (SPAs) under the EU wild birds directive. These make up a network of sites known as Natura 2000 sites. Designating such sites ensures that habitats and species of community importance are safeguarded.
EU member states are obliged to devise management plans to identify threats and manage them accordingly to ensure that the habitats and species within the sites maintain a favourable conservation status.
Malta boasts of having designated about 14 per cent of its land area and about 35 per cent of its territorial waters as SACs or SPAs. However, the very same government that is supposed to be protecting them is the main perpetrator of their degradation.
Never have these protected areas been subjected to nonchalant abuse as has happened during the last few years, whereby governmental institutions like IM have carried out unpermitted destructive interventions without any respect for the regulations governing works on such sites.
It is pertinent to ask why Home Affairs Minister Byron Camilleri is not being transparent in his replies to my questions related to whether any action was taken against IM for its continuous disregard of the laws/regulations related to the environment while works are carried out.
One may argue that infrastructural interventions are a necessity for the development of the country. Indeed, they are, but in order to resurface a country road one does not need to indiscriminately destroy the natural vegetation bordering the road.
Do we need the threat of EU action to protect our natural heritage?
Additionally, one does not need to pour concrete into rubble walls, widen such roads and encroach on the natural environment, destroy trees, and cause spills into the marine environment from maintenance works on coastal infrastructure, all because the methods chosen grossly failed to address the sensitivity of the site.
Moreover, to top it all, these interventions are very often carried out without an ERA environmental permit, with offending institutions only remedying the damage if being ordered to do so by the ERA.
In such circumstances who ends up paying the price for the offence and the environmental damage? Certainly not the offending governmental institution. The price for breaking the law and for remediating the environmental damage is being paid by the Maltese taxpayer.
Such extra costs could have been utilised for conservation benefits like afforestation projects or habitat restoration of degraded public sites for the enjoyment of the public.
Ultimately, the victims of all this institutionalised abuse are the public and the natural environment. Furthermore, Malta is obliged to protect Natura 2000 sites not only for the enjoyment of the Maltese public and as an eco-tourism product, but as a wider obligation towards the whole EU community.
Action can be taken against Malta due to the government’s failure to maintain them at a favourable conservation status. Do we need the threat of legal action by the EU to protect our natural heritage? The protection of the natural environment must be a matter of conviction and not simply of convenience.
This is the difference between the Nationalist Party and the Labour administration.
The PN is constantly working hard to hold government institutions to account, both those that are breaking the law and those that are failing to uphold it.
On behalf of the PN in opposition and all citizens, I will strive to keep on chasing and requesting accountability and propose plausible suggestions for the benefit of the environment and current and future generations.
Only the PN can truly start a new page for our country, in particular for our environment.
Robert Cutajar, PN spokesperson on the environment and climate change