An environmental activist is encouraging people on the receiving end of online abuse to stand up and report their aggressors and to not allow an “attitude of impunity” slide.
Cami Appelgren, who works as a ranger at the Majjistral park, was for the umpteenth time subject to online abuse while performing her duties and raising awareness about environmental conservation.
However, instead of ignoring the comments, she is now actively taking the time to report people who make threatening or harassing comments to her to the police.
On Thursday, she posted a TikTok video of herself clearing an illegal dura (hunter’s hide) and cleaning up the area which resulted in two bags worth of plastic waste.
One user took issue with this, and sent a string of abuse, telling Appelgren that she “understood nothing about Maltese agricultural practices” and should “get out and go f—k up your own country”.
“I have always been quite an outspoken person, so I’ve gotten my fair share of this over the years,” she told Times of Malta.
“But these specific sorts of comments are coming because of my job. Since I took an active role as a ranger, they now realise that reporting illegalities is part of my duties and it triggers their fear because they’re not used to facing enforcement.”
Appelgren says that people who had previously taken advantage of lax environmental enforcement were not accustomed to facing consequences for their actions and take further issue that it is her who is calling them out and reporting them to authorities.
“Malta had a particular issue with environmental laws that weren’t really enforced, not because of a lack of desire but largely due to a lack of resources. Recently, there has been more investment in this area, such as in Majjistral where we have increased the number of rangers, so the people who normally did whatever they wanted in nature realised that it wasn’t going to go on for much longer,” she said.
The Heritage Parks Federation also increased their rangers when employing Appelgren this year.
“I think it’s a universal reaction, when you tell someone off for doing something they’ve been doing for a long time, you are bound to face an amount of abuse. I would say that as a woman, the insults are slightly worse, but, as a foreigner, they are even worse than that.”
“They are also not used to someone refusing to take it lying down and reporting them. As at the moment, I’m ticking all of those boxes the comments have escalated quite a bit.”
Appelgren says that threatening and harassing comments are not an acceptable form of criticism and that failing to address it was putting more wind in the sails of aggressors.
“I’m often told by well-meaning people to ignore such comments and carry on with what I’m doing and not let them be a drain on my mental energy, and I tried that for a while but I noticed that when you say nothing, and these bullies feel that they are in the right, they’re going to keep on doing it,” she said.
“So I think yes, we have to report even the small cases because if their circle of friends are egging them on and no one is standing up to them, it’s going to blow up and escalate.
“When you realise that it’s not just a one-off, you think to yourself, why am I okay with this? It’s not right to be abusive just because you can get away with it online. It’s wrong and we shouldn’t allow it to become normal by just accepting it.”