When we realised that COVID-19 was not just another flu, there seemed to be a window of opportunity for collective awakening.
Perhaps a moment of dark hope; to look around, observe our behaviour and emotions, our values and look at how neoliberal ideologies have deformed us into their own image.
If only for a moment, some of us believed this humbling experience might serve as an impetus to reconsider our relationship with the planet. To finally become conscious that we can no longer live driven by greed and beyond our planetary boundaries; that the journey towards establishing the pillars for the new normal would entail a serious discussion on matters such as ‘sustainable living’; a politically correct, but now a meaningless notion.
We hoped that our commitment towards the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and their implementation would be high on our politicians’ agenda, that Governance for Resilience would become central in political discourse. Yet we have seen no measures put forward to make our small island state truly resilient through climate adaptation.
We applaud our institutions and those responsible for managing to contain the devastation which COVID-19 could have had on the lives of our small communities. But we cannot be alienated from the wider and complex scenario within which the COVID-19 pandemic is unfolding.
As some authors have already pointed out, the outbreak and its rapid spread is possibly intrinsically linked to our exploitative and violent relationships with the planet and our insatiable hunger for meat, even though these claims are scientifically contentious.
While as a country we should be proud to have successfully contained the virus’s contagion (at least for the time being), the Hub for Ethnobotanical Research, within the Malta Foundation for the Well-being of Society, feels we are still not exonerated from critically reflecting on the consequences of the ecocide taking place locally and globally, a phenomenon that not even COVID-19 seems to have managed to halt.
COVID-19 has demonstrated how our economies are not resilient
The Hub, through its work within the MFWS, has carried out research into food matters for a number of years and is calling for a focus on food sovereignty and food security and the way it intersects with healthy ecosystems.
The implications of the right to food sovereignty as defined by Via Campesina – an international farmers’ organisation – are that local and international food policies should include the voices of those producing food, especially of those facing marginalisation and violence within the global food systems.
These voices should be integral to, and not separate from, the notion of food security and accessibility for all those living on these islands.
Shortage of food is not a predictable scenario for our authorities. At the moment, food is not exactly scarce either. While local farmers are experiencing a surge in demand for their produce, many, particularly marginalised groups living in poverty, have no, or very limited, access to food.
What this pandemic has done was bring to the fore the harsh socio-economic realities adding to their intensity and urgency. COVID-19 has effectively demonstrated how our economies are not resilient, and how our rural communities, who may be categorised as ‘essential workers’, have yet to receive real financial support.
The Malta Foundation for the Well-being of Society is hoping this situation forces a parliamentary discussion on establishing structures for governance and economies for resilience, while the Hub is calling on parliament to consider green and blue economies often sidelined in economic measures and incentives.
The foundation is also urging MPs to introduce measures that take into consideration the Well-being Index, the Happy Planet Index, the Health per Acre Approach or Gross National Happiness index. If there’s one thing this virus has taught us is that relying solely on GDP and growth is dangerous and makes us vulnerable.
As we witness the ecological world thriving in the absence of human activity and noise, the Hub urges MPs and MEPs to kick-start a debate on creating a parliamentary working group targetting governance for resilience.
Mario Gerada, chair, National Hub for Ethnobotanical Research