‘Environment at heart’ – yeah, right

The more time passes, the more it is felt that the environment needs to be protected.

But this is because the more time passes, the more it is given the side. Years of neglect are followed by more years of neglect.

Successive governments have tried to juggle between the need for the country to make economic progress – with all the investment that comes with it, such as the infrastructure, which includes roads – and the importance of safeguarding the environment.

But the battle is always won by the economy. The environment is always the loser.

And so the little green space that this country started with continues to be eaten up by concrete, buildings and roads. The added difference of the past few years is that the concrete, buildings and roads are becoming higher, wider and bigger. The visual impact gets worse. Just look around you to get the idea.

NGOs try their best to raise awareness and express concern, but their voice is weak and their resources even weaker when compared to the power wielded by those they come up against.

One realises that an election is fast approaching when politicians start speaking about the importance of the environment. It happens every time, but once the votes are counted, the environment is quickly pushed to the side until another five years pass and it’s time to vote again.

Robert Abela

A few weeks ago, Prime Minister Robert Abela said that the government had the environment at heart. His statement drew criticism because facts, as we all know, speak otherwise.

To be fair, environmental damage and neglect did not start in Malta under Robert Abela. Neither did it start when the Labour Party took over the reins of the country in 2013, with Joseph Muscat as Prime Minister. The Nationalist administrations, under both Eddie Fenech Adami and Lawrence Gonzi, were responsible for decisions that harmed the environment, and showed that economic and other interests were taking precedence.

But for Abela to speak of a government that has environment at heart was almost a provocation, given the Labour government’s track record. Over the past years, controversies with environment as the main subject were common, not least because of the many infrastructural projects spearheaded by the government which, added to other private initiatives, turned Malta into a permanent construction site.

No area has been spared. Go anywhere in the country and, when you look up, you can see a crane which spoils the view. Sometimes it is almost impossible to go from point A to point B without having to be diverted onto secondary roads. There have been situations when these secondary roads then turn out to be also blocked by some other project.

Some may see this as a sign that the construction industry is healthy, that it is generating jobs, and that it is an ever-important column of the country’s economy. Well and good, but the downside of this is pollution, shabbiness and a growing concrete jungle.

The fact that the more time passes, the more buildings being erected are becoming higher, the sensation of oppressiveness grows exponentially. This is more so in areas where buildings facing each other are separated by a few metres, often just a one-way street. It feels like the buildings are closing in on you.

Ian Borg

The government is defending itself saying that it is making up for the years of neglect under Nationalist administrations, especially when it comes to the building of new roads. This may be true, as there has never been so much activity in the major arterial connections across the island. But the question that remains is whether these multi-million projects, once completed, will lead to a smoother traffic flow.

For now, the answer seems to be in the negative. Although investment in this sector has been heavy, and the flyovers and underpasses are serving to ease congestion, there is always some bottleneck a couple of miles down

the road which brings cars to a halt and lead to long queues. Again, the government says that this is a seven-year project which is still to be completed, and therefore any criticism should be made some years down the line when all the major road works would be over.

Let us, therefore, give the benefit of the doubt. What is sure, however, is that with the number of cars on our roads increasing by the day – also because the country’s population is on a rapid rise – one wonders whether what we are doing now will need to be revised… just as soon as the seven-year plan is finished.

The person politically responsible for Malta’s infrastructure, Ian Borg, is often in the eye of the storm. Each time some new road project is being launched, starting, midway or being concluded, he has to defend it, promote it and say it is in the national interest. There is, then, always some tree or trees that have to be uprooted or simply chopped down, which makes things more complicated for him to explain.

Planting new ones is not enough to replace what trees which have been in place for decades, sometimes centuries, can provide.

Aaron Farrugia

Aaron Farrugia’s job is opposite to that of Borg. His role is not to build roads, but to see that any roads that are being built do not harm the environment.

When the Prime Minister came up with the statement that the environment is at the government’s heart, Farrugia was asked for his opinion. His answer was that the Labour Party in government is in transition from focusing on the economy to the environment. Maybe the minister did not realise that he was admitting that, so far, the government has put aside the environment to favour the economy. Saying that the government will be putting the environment as the “top of the agenda” means that, until now, the environment played second fiddle to other interests.

“I believe that we have started to gather momentum to move towards an ecological and environmental transition to continue balancing these two sectors,” the minister told this media house. In other words, right now there is no balance between the two sectors and, if one were to guess, it is the economy which took the upper hand in all these years.

The thing is, there were still ways through which the economy could be revitalised and jobs to be created without showing so much disrespect to environmental needs.

One does wonder whether the balance Farrugia speaks about will ever come to be. The way things are going does not give one too much optimism that it will happen. And, if it eventually does, it could already be too late.

Probably we are already too late. Because having vertical gardens is pleasing to the eye, but the green does little to contrast the grey that has increasing become the predominant colour in our public places.

PA and ERA

When the Labour government opted to disband the Malta Environment and Planning Authority to set up two entities – the Planning Authority and the Environment and Resources Authority – it was thought that the situation with regard to the environment would have improved.

That was the intention. Separating “planning” from the “environment” was aimed to give a stronger voice to the “environment” on matters related to “planning”. But the experience of the last five years has shown otherwise.

While the Planning Authority continues to dispense permits, some of which in spite of public protestations and opposition, the ERA appears to be too weak to be of contrast to the PA. So much so that two months ago a group of NGOs wrote to Farrugia to request the removal of Prof. Victor Axiaq from the post of ERA head, accusing him that he “repeatedly and unashamedly… acted and voted against the environmental wellbeing of the country”.

The ERA chief defended himself saying that he always voted according to his conscience and ERA reports, but this situation proves that – at least to environmentalists – the ERA is not living up to their expectations.

The NGOs

This takes us to the vital role that NGOs play in the overall scenario.

Yet, try as they might, they find brick walls and, very often, in spite of all their efforts, the environment ends up on the losing end.

Their limited resources, mostly financial, are a weakness which they try to overcome with initiatives such as crowdfunding.

But their strong point is their dedication and commitment to the cause. The problem is that dedication and commitment are not enough to fight power.