Rootless people with an axe to grind

I’ve been writing for this newspaper just over four years now and there are probably as many unpublished articles sitting inside my Mac as there are articles that made it to print.

We’re an ignorant nation obsessed with roundabouts… But if it’s green and there’s soil involved, it’s got to go- Michela Spiteri

It’s not unusual to begin writing something, abandon the idea mid-piece and then start over. If I wrote for this newspaper pre-computers, I suppose there’d be days when I’d have heaps of A4 ruled crumpled papers overflowing outside my waste paper basket.

Today, the articles stay put, which is just as well, because oddly enough, whatever I wrote one, two, three, even four years ago is still as relevant today as it was back then. Nothing ever goes out of fashion here in Malta, because nothing here ever really changes.

I think the majority of the Maltese have a pretty good idea who Renzo Piano is. If they ever conducted one of those high-street vox pops, the likelihood is that most would be able to tell you he’s the €80 million Italian architect, responsible for the redesign of the opera house and the entrance to our capital city.

Incidentally, there must be about two or three of those unfinished symphonies about his project saved to my laptop, which still have not yet made it to this newspaper. Perhaps I’ve been a little bit ‘piano’ on the uptake in that department.

But there are far more articles I started and never finished about Malta’s trees or lack thereof. And if it’s the only resolution I keep this year, I promised myself I would finally retrieve, recycle and rewrite the pieces.

While Piano is an established household name here, few, if any, know who the American architect Vincent Pieri is, and that he paid our little island a visit. And that it struck him, though not in quite the same way it struck Piano before him.

Piano was impressed by what he saw in Valletta, and I can’t say I blame him, because our capital city used to be the best thing we had. Pieri, who visited Malta in October 2010 to deliver two lectures on green architecture and sustainability, was struck by what he didn’t see.

This was how he put it: “Flying in to Malta and looking out of the window, what struck me is there aren’t any trees. I’d say, plant a shade tree. Get with your neighbours and plant them.”

He said more than that. He talked about the cooling effects of strategically planted trees which block off sunlight and result in cooler homes and better landscaping.

If only the government made as big a fuss of Pieri as it did of Piano, Malta would be a far better place.

Pieri’s visit happened to coincide with a story this newspaper carried about the trees on the Paola roundabout, which were axed and chopped down in 2010, provoking the wrath and fury of online readers. I saw the pitiful site of the tree stumps for myself several times after that and have since come across numerous other areas where trees have met the same fate.

It’s disgusting. We’ve joined Europe but at times like these I feel we have absolutely no right to be there.

This is what Ronald Cuschieri had to say: “The trees were removed because Transport Malta is undertaking a new project that will see the centre of the roundabout landscaped and reconstructed. They weren’t a protected species and we had all the relevant permits for the work to be done.”

And just in case you imagined Cuschieri was some roughneck working with the roads department, he’s actually got a much fancier job description. He’s general manager of Malta’s Environmental Landscape Consortium.

What a comforting thought to know that our landscape is in the hands of someone who thinks that as long as he has a permit, the trees can go.

In the same way that you can tell a lot about people by the way they hold their fork and especially their knife, you can tell a lot about a nation by its attitude to and treatment of trees and animals.

The vast majority of the Maltese see gardens and trees as a nuisance and chore because the falling leaves need to be swept.

I live opposite the Sacred Heart convent, which is also where I went to school. Aesthetically, there wasn’t a more superior girls’ school. It had the most stunning trees. Last Summer I witnessed the school gardener chopping away at all the fig trees which used to provide the best shade and some of the loveliest shadows, during our lunch breaks.

It felt like I had lost a limb.

The reality is that ever since local councils have sprung up everywhere, our trees have simultaneously undergone eradication and uprootal from our cities and village centres with the same alacrity.

Overseas, more and more trees are being planted and factored into modern urban planning, precisely because it is a proven fact that tree-lined streets cool down houses, thus decreasing the need for air-conditioners. But here in Malta, when it comes to trees, we have an axe to grind.

Żebbug, one of Malta’s oldest villages, which should really be marketed touristically as an olive grove, recently became the latest victim of another chainsaw massacre. The beautiful ficus and other trees in De Rohan Avenue, a street wide enough to accommodate greenery on both sides, were stumped on account of a supposed upgrade.

Amazingly, if our trees aren’t sick, they’re causing damage to nearby buildings or taking up precious bench-space.

This doesn’t happen anywhere else in the world where trees are ubiquitous and at least six times the size of ours. Perhaps it has something to do with the size of our country-men. Our pygmy proportions just can’t handle the competition.

We’re an ignorant nation obsessed with roundabouts, red kitsch paving, Iroko, marble-floors and sgrassatore. But if it’s green and there’s soil involved, it’s got to go.

michelaspiteri@gmail.com