Opinion | Sunday, 28 March 2010

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State of the environment? A bloody disgrace...

I’ve just read MEPA’s State of the Environment Report 2008, and... AAAAAARGGGH!

Sorry about that. No idea why, but it happens every time they play Dick Dale and the Deltones on the radio.
But back to the MEPA report. For those who have yet to download it, be informed that it is not a very difficult read. You could breeze through it in around four minutes flat, as practically every other line is a repeat of its predecessor. Things like: ‘Further studies are needed...’; ‘Not enough research has been carried out...’; ‘Complete information is lacking...’, ‘Data is not available...’.
Honestly, I counted an average of two such comments on every one of its 80 pages.

Then there are those marvellous throwaway lines – you know, the sort of measured understatement that Mark Twain would no doubt have admired (if the reports of his death hadn’t turned out to be accurate after all). Here is my favourite: “It is estimated that uncontrolled exploitation has led to a number of extinctions and popular reductions, although complete information is still lacking...”

Huh? Come again? ‘A number of extinctions’, did you say? Be a bit more nonchalant about it, will you? And while I’m in the process of asking utterly irrelevant questions: how many extinctions, exactly? Which species? What kind of ‘exploitation’ are we talking about? And what impact has the loss of these organisms already had on the ecosystems which once hosted them? (Hate to point this out, but these are precisely the sort of questions that ‘scientific reports’ are usually expected to address, you know...)

But no, nothing of the kind. Instead, we get a whole series of similarly scintillating classic one-liners... like this one right here: “Only two fish species were assessed [for this report]... the Mediterranean Killifish has an unfavourable/inadequate status... the status of the Mediterranean Shad is as yet unknown...”
Interesting new definition of the word ‘assessment’, I must say. Now what would happen, I wonder, if the University of Malta were to take it up when ‘assessing’ its students’ work?
“Yes, we have ‘assessed’ your dissertation, but I’m afraid we can’t give you a grade, because we have no idea what it’s actually about.”
But... didn’t you just say you ‘assessed’ it?
“Of course! It’s just that we didn’t... um... read it...”

Anyhow. I could go on like this all day, but let’s not lose sight of the bigger picture. For all its gaping holes and its astonishing scientific paucity, MEPA’s report does makes one point abundantly clear: we have mismanaged the environment to such an extent that Malta’s biodiversity is now under severe threat of depletion. If you don’t believe me, check out the first two paragraphs of Chapter 8:

“The status of 29% of Maltese habitats and 36% of Maltese species listed in the Habitats Directive is still unknown. In addition 64% of habitats and 44% of species have an inadequate or bad conservation status.”

Ouch. One quick mathematical calculation later, and the following, truly disturbing statistics swim into view:
1) Only 7% of Maltese habitats can be described as ‘adequately protected’. Protection of the remaining 93% is ‘bad’, ‘inadequate’ or simply ‘unknown’.
2) A staggering 80% of Maltese wildlife is either threatened, endangered or data deficient (which, in a tiny country like ours, often suggests declining numbers).
And now, a few of the individual findings, as reported:
Plants: ‘Out of 14 assessed terrestrial species, 13 have an unfavourable status... one of these is possibly extinct... The status of the marine species could not be assigned in view of limited data...”
Painted Frog: [Malta’s only amphibian, folks]: ‘inadequate and deteriorating’.
Inverterbrates: ‘The status of five [out of six] terrestrial species is unfavourable.... The general status of marine species is unknown...’
Birds: ‘There was a decrease in the Blue Rock Thrush population in the last 20 years and the Corn Bunting continues to decline...’

Admittedly, there is some good news here and there: new breeding birds have been observed in Buskett and elsewhere; the hedgehog, you will be pleased to hear, is classed as ‘favourable’... as are all but one of our endemic lizard species.
But four out of six bat species are ‘inadequate’; there is no data at all for the elusive Sicilian shrew... and most disconcerting of all, no mention is made anywhere in the entire document of the good old ‘ballottra’: the weasel, that small but incredibly ferocious predator that once upon a time adorned our old 1c coin.
And whatever happened to him, I almost shudder to ask? Was the weasel one of the ‘number of extinctions’ referred to above? Did it slowly and silently vanish away, while we were all too busy arguing about political rubbish to even notice?
If so, it would quite frankly be the saddest news I have ever heard.

So much for wildlife (honestly, there’s not much more in the report). Now let us turn to natural habitat, where MEPA seems to think it has scored some kind of victory: “As of end 2008, 20.5% of Malta was covered by some form of statutory designation for the purposes of nature protection... indeed, as of June 2008, Malta had almost reached sufficiency with respect to the proportion (93%) of habitats and species for which an adequate number of terrestrial Natura 2000 sites have been proposed under the Habitats Directive...”

Oh, jolly good. So according to MEPA, Maltese countryside is (almost) sufficiently protected, because 20.5% has been designed for protection as ‘Natura 2000 sites’, eh? So... which parts of Malta enjoy all this ‘protection’? Let’s see now: top of the list is... Bahrija valley.

Hang on a second. Are we talking about the same Bahrija valley in which MEPA very recently issued a development permit for a massive villa belonging to former PN president, Victor Scerri? And where excavations have already started (and stopped), resulting in a whopping great scar right across the hillside? Because if so, we shall have to add ‘protection’ to the growing list of words whose meanings have evidently been ‘redefined’...

Next on the list of ‘protected’ habitats is Mistra Bay. Remember Mistra, anyone? A beautiful, pristine valley, so unspoilt, so idyllic, and so potentially lucrative that the Malta Tourism Authority felt compelled to recommend an open-air disco bang in the middle? (Cause of much pre-electoral brouhaha, as I seem to recall...)
Oh wait, I almost left out Dwejra in Gozo: you know, a ‘Natura 2000 site’ so adequately protected from development, that a great chunk of it is now taken up by an ‘Interpretation Centre’ (which I assume is Gozitan for ‘something to keep a few well-connected building contractors in fee’...)?

And there you have it. ‘Natura 2000 protection’, my ass. If the experience of the past six years is anything to go by, there is simply no such thing as a ‘protected’ landscape of any kind in the Maltese islands. Protection exists on paper, sure... but in practice, we all know that there is not a square inch of the countryside that is immune to speculative development.
So Victor Scerri wants a villa on a Natura 2000 site? Never fear: MEPA will find a way for him to get it. Charles Polidano wants to build a ‘Lidl’ (actually, rather large) supermarket outside the development zone near Safi? No worries: the MEPA board will personally step in to overturn the case officer’s recommendation, and see to it that Caqnu’s will is done, Amen.
And what if Lawrence Gonzi himself wants to inject a little feel-good factor among his property-mad electorate – you know, as a little ‘thank you’ to all the PN’s generous financial contributors over the years? Simple: he merely extends the building zones by an additional 2.3%, stripping a swathe of land the size of Siggiewi of its ‘protected’ status, so that it can be torn up by bulldozers to build flats and garages at will.

And guess what? If any of us so much as dares to object in any way... for instance, by pointing out that Malta’s threatened biodiversity (which we are both morally and legally obliged to safeguard, by the way) depends precisely on the preservation of such natural sites for its survival... well, we will be shouted down and defecated upon by newspapers and blogs; we will stand accused of harbouring ‘conflicts of interests’ and ‘hidden agendas’, then threatened with being ‘outed’ for God-knows-what entirely personal and private affair... until one by one, bullied and browbeaten, we will all slink into corner, licking our wounds and watching helplessly while the last ‘protected’ valley is torn up by bulldozers, and the last endemic species officially declared extinct.

Honestly: what chance does a poor weasel have, against a propaganda machine as unstoppable and utterly disgusting as that?

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