13th May 2005

Wrong end of the stick

In reply to the press release issued by the Ministry of Environment, Friends of the Earth, would like to make its position clear that the previous press release was in reaction to the opposition leader's call for NGOs to prepare a report that would indicate how Malta could respect the targets in the Kyoto protocol.

The points mentioned were, as already stated, a list of suggestions on how Malta can realistically reach the Kyoto targets and in no way was it meant to be directly criticising the government and what has and has not been done so far to tackle this problem. Further to this, Friends of the Earth (Malta) also offered to take up the challenge, given the financial resources.

The ministry seems to give the impression that NGOs are only there to criticise the government. Visiting our website at http://www.foemalta.org (and that of other NGOs) will give an indication of the work being done by NGOs. We would also like to invite the ministry to come up with suggestions on how we can work together on projects, from which the environment would benefit.