September is the cruellest month for migratory birds. Not only does it mark the opening of the Autumn hunting season, but it also ushers in an annual massacre of supposedly protected birds: among them, honey buzzards, ospreys and even the occasional flamingo.
From this perspective, the ongoing hunting controversy is as good an issue as any to gauge what truth there may be in the Nationalist Party’s oft-repeated mantra that it is the “natural party of the environment”: if nothing else, because the present government will no doubt cite its efforts to curb hunting – which also involved the abrupt closure of the Spring season last May – among its presumed environmental successes.
And yet, the government’s entire strategy on hunting also exposes the inherent difficulties faced by both Malta’s large political parties when it comes to placating the increasingly pivotal environmentalist vote.
Ever since 2004, the Nationalist government has insisted on defying European law by opening the spring season. In so doing, the government has fallen between two stools: on one hand, it has regularly infuriated environmentalists, many of whom had favoured EU membership precisely because of such regulations as the Birds Directive. On the other, the same government has also succeeded in alienating the hunting community, which appears to have finally understood that the PN’s pre-referendum promises were at best unsustainable in the long term.
The above scenario encapsulates much of the trouble with both the PN and the MLP when it comes to green issues. Both parties regularly cite the need to “strike a balance between the environment and (for instance) development”. And yet, it was precisely such a balancing act that caused the Gonzi administration to fall squarely between the above two stools.
A similar juggling stunt, this time involving last year’s remarkable decision to extend the 1990 development boundaries by 2.6 per cent, also failed in its immediate objectives. Far from convincing the masses that its intention was to secure social justice, the government’s ODZ extension only managed to galvanise an otherwise fragmented environmental lobby to take to the streets in protest.
In both cases – and there other examples – what emerges is an intrinsic misreading of the entire raison d’etre of Malta’s budding environmentalist consciousness to begin with. Rather than attempting to “strike a balance”, both the PN and the MLP would do well to listen to the growing chorus of disgruntled supporters who have come round to understanding that the environment – far from being “in competition” with development – is all about the quality of life. It is a natural consequence of improved education standards (for which, admittedly, the present government can take some credit) and heightened expectations, whereby a growing sector of the public at large are no longer content to accept a status quo simply because their party of choice urges them to acquiesce.
The new environmentalism is perhaps best epitomised by the present administration’s bete noir. Astrid Vella may not have saved the oldest house in Sliema from demolition, but she did succeed in driving home a point which other, longer established environmental organisations have often overlooked. “The environment” is not just about some obscure species of butterfly, or the mating habits of geckos. It is all about our quality of life: the ability to enjoy the countryside without being physically bullied by hunters and/or other nuisances; concerns with air pollution; light pollution; urban space for children to play in safety; improved public transport; alternative energy, and many more.
Above all, it is a genuine popular concern with the wholesale loss of irreplaceable tracts of public land to the developers’ bulldozers. Again, the loss is keenly felt not just because of its impact on lizards and field mice. On the contrary, it has come to represent nothing less than the loss of our cultural identity: the same identity which, at the present rate of destruction, will not eve be recognised by our children in future.
In brief, today’s environmentalists are no longer the wild-haired, slightly eccentric grasshopper enthusiasts of yesteryear. Today’s environmentalists are an entire generation of forward-looking people, who expect their political leaders to pave the way to a better quality of life for themselves and their offspring in future.
Until the main parties make this realisation, the environment will continue to be a vote-losing issue for them both.