Friends of the Earth (Malta) has poured scorn on Malta's achievements in environmental sustainability over the past 10 years, outlined in the Malta National Report, which is to be presented at the Earth Summit in Johannesburg.

"The main vehicle for improvement following Rio is Agenda 21. The report is full of references to Agenda 21 and even the Prime Minister is quoted as saying: 'Agenda 21 has had a positive effect on Malta and stimulated the government to update and introduce legislation, to adopt policies and to take action conducive to sustainable development, seeking public participation towards this end.'

"Which action? Which policies?," it said in a statement yesterday.

"Where was Agenda 21 applied? Malta has not initiated even one local Agenda 21 process and hardly anyone in Malta knows what Agenda 21 is."

"The authors simply looked back at the last 10 years for any sort of initiative, conference, meeting in a corridor, etc., that had to do with the environment and stuck them into the report as initiatives of relevance to Agenda 21.

"None of the 'projects' - six of which are listed, and of these two were competitions and two conferences, were ever presented as Agenda 21. They could not have been.

"The truth is that if we look at any of the environmental areas - be it land use, water, air, energy, transport, consumption of resources - we are in a worse situation now that we were in 1991, when the Earth Summit in Rio was held and Malta committed itself to Agenda 21 and sustainable development. That major truth has been hidden from the report."

The government was making moves to start environmental improvements and Friends of the Earth (Malta) had met and spoken to capable people who were now putting the environment on the agenda and pushing for environmental change, it said.

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