The rural innocence of the Arcadian valley lying between Nadur and Xagħra is under threat. This idyllic countryside has a fascination of its own.
One recalls Homer's words (c. 850 BC) when he described the once virgin territory around the Cave of Calypso and the nymph whose seductive allure reputedly entranced homesick Ulysses, the greatest Homeric hero, for seven long years.
A famous painting springs to mind: the work of Jan Brueghel (1568-1625) representing the amorous encounters of Ulysses and Calypso with a Maltese dog in attendance. The painting reinforces the theory that even in the 16th century, the legendary Calypso's Cave was already located in the Maltese archipelago.
To the literary world the most famous description of an Arcadian landscape is immortalised in Homer's Odyssey, an area identified since time immemorial with Gozo's Ramla l-Ħamra.
Sadly, all the contrived planning oddities indicate how hard it is to maintain the cultural, archaeological and environmental ideals of our countryside. Regrettably, Gozo is also losing its uniqueness, that of providing a stage for an encounter with the spiritual resources of nature.
Our sister island has been blessed with many beautiful gems: Ramla l-Ħamra Valley, that exotic site of rural peace and simplicity stretching from the red sandy beach to the Neolithic temples of Ġgantija and beyond, interspersed with the Bronze Age village of lofty Nuffara. One cannot forget the vast Roman villa buried under the foreshore, Paleo-Christian remains in the form of an Augustinian hermitage reputedly built in 439 AD, the Knights' submerged wall and fortifications.
Of note, of course, is Gozo's association with the Homeric abode of the nymph Calypso. This is fertile land for the complete beginner and the mature historian.
Since the third century BC, the Maltese islands have been closely associated with Homer's Odyssey, which records in verse form oral traditions based on much older events performed by the adventurous Mycenaeans whose empire lasted from c. 1600 to c. 1200 BC. The connection of the Maltese Islands with the Mycenaeans is evidenced from a fragment of a cup discovered in the Bronze Age village of Borġ in-Nadur in Birżebbuġa.
Professor Anthony Bonanno reveals that the identification of Gozo with the Homeric Calypso is not a modern invention but was put forward in the third century BC by the poet and critic Callimachus who incidentally also compiled an encyclopaedia of sports and games.
For Ramla l-Ħamra to be intimately associated with the most famous Homeric heroes carries with it a great responsibility on all those involved in preserving our heritage. Paul Theroux, the renowned travel writer, in his book The Pillars of Hercules - A Grand Tour of the Mediterranean, makes this interesting observation; "You cannot do better than use the authority of the Odyssey to prove that your home town was once important".
As we sadly witness the impending tragedy, it is well to remember that on the merit of its great scenic beauty alone this hallowed valley is fully deserving of a World Heritage Site nomination. Furthermore, as an "Area of High Landscape Value" it is fully entitled to protection from the Malta Environment and Planning Authority in line with the authority's stated policies as well as the Council of Europe's commitment to extend protection to the countryside as a whole "on the grounds of heritage landscape".
Soon swathes of red clover will cover the rugged slopes and flowers will bloom. In winter and early spring, Ramla Valley, engulfed in the sheer beauty of wild flowers, offers a floral paradise unsurpassed in the Maltese Islands. It is a time when fields run to a riot of colour and the visitor can marvel at the lush green foliage decking the hillsides which are so bare and forbidding in the long hot summer months.
You walk past fields of white and yellow mustard plants, pockets of red clover and poppies, large clusters of the yellow cape sorrel and the crown daisy. You smell the intoxicating fragrance of the wild thyme, the sweet scent of the yellow-flowered fennel-plant; you notice the sudden changes of the Gozo landscape and the dramatic shifts in topography. This is Gozo... this is beautiful.
Writing in the Malta Architectural Review (July 1969) the renowned architect and historian Quentin Hughes could decipher the writing on the wall almost four decades ago stating: "What are the island's resources now? ...a unique and completely man-made landscape and a historical treasure-house - two thousand years of European and North African culture crystallised and condensed on one small limestone rock. But Malta is falling prey to industrialisation, that contentious edict of modern economics, and in doing so is surely destroying her most valuable asset: a unique architectural landscape".
Without any doubt, as we sadly witness Malta's slide into its environmental abyss, Quentin Hughes' predictions have woefully been proved right. The environmental plundering and illegal incursions are outstripping our ability to police them as another illustrious friend of Malta, the well known anthropologist Jeremy Boissevain, recently pointed out in an impassioned lecture entitled 'Malta: Taking Stock after fifty years. Where to now?'.
Boissevain's intellectual presentation on the state of the environment went unchallenged even when he rightly declared: "One problem in particular has struck me most forcefully. This is the massive destruction of the environment since independence. Your countryside and cultural heritage, your coastal zone... quite literally have been and are still being raped." Need I say more?
As this irreversible tragedy unfolds, could any of our choirs start rehearsing Where have all the flowers gone? and Nothing is sacred any more, two veritable laments?