04th October 2001

Government giving false impression of its environmental ‘achievements’

The government is being deceitful when speaking about the environment but people will not be fooled, FoE (Malta) said today.

In its partisan newspaper the government has advertised an up-coming public meeting claiming that the environment was high on its agenda. In a publication* presented to the United Nations the Ministry for Social Policy claims: “Environment protection and the environmental care of children are high priorities for the Government of Malta.”

It is simply insulting to the Maltese population for the government to be making such claims when everybody living in Malta knows that scientific studies clearly indicate environmental degradation as a cause of health problems in Malta. Just to cite one example, a recent study indicates that residents of Fgura suffer from the highest rates of respiratory problems in the world.

Those living close to the Marsa power station must fair no better, while those living close to Maghtab probably live in worse circumstances. The Maltese government has made no progress in tackling the major environmental problems that our islands face.

Our air, water and sea quality deteriorate year after year. Our misuse of land and mineral resources continues at increasingly unsustainable rates with the Ministry for the Environment being a prime culprit.

The government is not tackling serious environmental problems including those related to: the high rate of vacant dwellings which is causing further pressure on our precious land resources; the loss of agricultural and coastal land to undesirable development; the ongoing slaughter of birds; our unsustainable and polluting agricultural practices; the pollution of our bays; the toxicity and volume of the waste we are creating and our environmentally destructive transport systems.

Passing toothless environment laws and the setting up of commissions for sustainable development do not constitute environmental improvements on their own and the government will not be believed in its claims to care for the environment until it starts to take action to reject environmentally unfriendly developments whether these are fish farms, golf courses or large tourism accommodation developments and adopts programmes that will lead to environmental improvements.

Friends of the Earth (Malta) will be writing to the UN to explain government’s deceit in regard to its claims about its priorities.



Signed,
Julian Manduca

* National Report (Malta) on the follow-up of the world summit for children