Rape of the sea and land
Where have the fish gone?
Local divers, snorkellers, anglers and marine enthusiasts often lament about the lack of fish in our waters, with an almost complete lack of large fish in some bays and inlets.
The indiscriminate laying of trammel nets at the mouth of bays could be one of the most likely reasons behind the lack of fish.
Visit St Thomas Bay anytime after 7 p.m. and you will see hordes of luzzu boats at the entrance to the bay laying their trammel nets (pariti), which unsurprisingly derives from the Italian word for wall (parete), to form an insurmountable underwater wall hundreds of metres long.
The law stipulates that the parit can be used everywhere except between February 15 and July 15 within a line drawn between two stone pillars placed on opposite sides of certain bays and creeks, in order to prevent the obviation of fish eggs which are laid in inlets at this time of year.
The luzzu appearing in the photo may well be straddling the imaginary line mentioned in the law but two nagging issues remain unresolved - firstly, laying pariti just a few metres outside this imaginary line may well be within the law but they still catch mature fish seeking to enter inlets to lay their eggs. So luzzu boats are still capitalising by positioning themselves at the mouth of the bay.
Secondly, what form of enforcement takes place out at sea? Who is actually checking whether the boats' positions conform to the current law or whether they are flouting it? Law enforcement at sea is urgently needed.
The derelict south
Given our country's small size, reference to the 'south' of the island may be slightly exaggerated, but the widespread perception that areas south of Qormi are generally left to their own devices is not completely unfounded.
Take the Xgħajra/Żabbar area: a few hundred metres outside the precincts of Smart City lie two architectural jewels that are literally facing oblivion. The Victorian Fort San Leonardo, built between 1872 and 1878 to guard the island's vulnerable southeast coastline, is bearing the brunt of the government's inexplicable decision in the 1970s to hand the fort over to a cattle farmer.
What should be a restored fort, evoking the military period of the 19th century, currently houses well over 100 cattle heads, with overgrown ditches, heaving haystacks, the stench of cow dung and a barred entrance greeting any enterprising visitor.
Further misery awaits the culturally-savvy a short distance away at the unique complex consisting of a baronial residence, chapel and country tower, originally known as Id-Dar tal-Barunessa, courtesy of Baroness Maria Cafici Casolani who once lived here, and currently known as Id-Dar tas-Soru, after the complex was immortalised in the 1970s television series. Not surprisingly, as testimony to our philistine character, a farmer decided to develop a piggery in the fields abutting the complex, to which many have laid claim since the 1970s.
In 2006, the Malta Environment and Planning Authority (Mepa) scheduled the complex as a Grade 2 listed building, yet to date it remains as abandoned as ever, and the bounty of ransackers.
Just outside Fort San Leonardo, massive land reclamation exercises are underway, in addition to what appear to be soil and rock crushing exercises. The 'operators' of this activity have also brazenly narrowed the access road used by farmers and which skirts their 'property'. Queries have been lodged with Mepa regarding the legality of this activity and any eventual reply will be published in future.
Couldn't the windfall from Smart City have been extended to include these two downtrodden jewels so that they may be restored to at least a semblance of their former glory?
Some sobering statistics
This column has been at the forefront of the movement clamouring for more stringent enforcement. When one realises the scale of enforcement backlog this further reinforces the dire call for enforcement resources to be bolstered.
A total of 7,326 enforcement cases are still pending, of which almost one-fourth (1,724) were first issued more than a decade ago (i.e. pre-1999), with some even dating back to 1993.
The locality on the islands with the highest number of pending enforcement cases is St Paul's Bay, with 607 cases, which is almost 10 per cent of the total, followed by Mellieħa (371), Rabat (276), Siġġiewi (253), Naxxar and Marsascala (234) and Victoria (225).
The long overdue Mepa reform, which is supposed to address the country's enforcement deficit, will have been announced by the time this article is published. Time will tell whether these sobering statistics become more palatable over the coming months and years.
The numbers speak volumes about our disposition as a nation towards planning legislation - we are essentially a nation of opportunists who have no qualms about developing a site in an Outside Development Zone (ODZ), an Urban Conservation Area (UCA) or infringing conditions in a 'within-scheme' area.
alan.deidun@gmail.com