Two weeks ago, the President took a detour from a day trip to Gozo to visit Comino. It turned out to be little more than a stopover during which Her Excellency apparently met with employees of the hotel and the four remaining residents of the island. She also visited the Santa Marija Tower, but that bit went largely unnoticed.

Which was disappointing, for at least two reasons. First, because it doused my hopes that the presidency might get involved in things other than the staple rounds of do-gooding and telethons.

With the possible exception of Ugo Mifsud Bonnici, none of our presidents seem to have considered extending the gravitas and weight of the office towards a sustained stewardship of heritage and the environment.

Second, because Comino is so much more than a few buildings surrounded by stretches of bare rock and a beach. It’s also a place that’s rapidly deteriorating and crying out for some serious attention. The President would be well-placed to kickstart the whole thing.

My love affair with Comino started many years ago when I used to camp there three or four times a year with some birdwatcher friends. Predictably, our favourite spot on the island was a magnet for birds.

Santa Marija Bay had a sizeable and natural reed bed which held fresh water for most of the year. Herons would skulk among the reeds during the spring and autumn migrations, and the blue flash of kingfishers was a thrill that never quite wore off.

That was until someone came up with the bright idea of bulldozing the whole thing to make room for a campsite of sorts. The place is now a pathetic landscape of clods, puddles and bits and pieces of decommissioned camping junk. It hurts to as much as think about it.

Nor is it an exception. That limited edition title goes to a small patch of land at Wied l-Aħmar, which Birdlife Malta clings on to as a field observatory. There, volunteers from the organisation have taken the trouble to rebuild rubble walls, plant trees and shrubs, and so on. The observatory itself consists of two tiny, old rooms, refurbished after decades of neglect.

The rest is pretty grim. On Comino, the state of the art is deteriorating fast. The Blue Lagoon is now a nightmare to all but the most committed frotteurs.

Every year in June, unidentified people who have absolutely nothing to do with the hotel or the beach kiosks dump aggregate on the dirt tracks; every year in October, it all just washes off and destroys the garigue a bit further. Santa Marija Bay is in a shambles. The area around the pig farm has an apocalyptic air about it. And so on.

That’s the optimistic bit. In the longer term, it’s the essence of Comino itself that’s in the balance. The (thankfully) chimeric prospect of a Malta-Gozo bridge aside, I’ve heard rumblings that would turn what’s left of the pig farm into yet another ‘exclusive development’.

Besides, the owners of the stretch of garigue that lies between the hotel and the bungalows seem to be rather restless these days. The Gasan Group website tells us that:

“This company owns a very important parcel of land on the island of Comino, overlooking two private serene and beautiful bays. The company’s owners are currently undertaking extensive studies with a view to proceed on an ambitious development plan, which will take this unique site upmarket. The development will fully respect the majestic and natural beauty of Comino.”

Yes, because we have a rich and convincing history of ambitious development plans that fully respect majestic and natural beauty. There’s so much of this full respect around that my ears pop and my nose bleeds every time I go for a walk in the countryside.

The sad thing is that Comino would be the ideal place for innovative projects of a different kind. Take marine conservation, which, diving tourism and all, is at present all but non-existent in Malta.

We have reams of scientific studies and, since 2005, a fair few Marine Protected Areas (MPAs). The sea around Majjistral Park is one, as is the stretch of water between Filfla and Għar Lapsi. The idea is unimpeachable.

The place is now a pathetic landscape of clods, puddles and bits and pieces of decommissioned camping junk

Problem is, there is zero political will to invest funds and human resources to actually protect these places. The result is paper reserves where one can spearfish, trammel-net, or dump old fridges at will.

There are a million reasons why Comino would lend itself. For one, there are few competing interests (the island has a grand total of four residents, only one of whom fishes for a part-time living). It’s also the case that the island’s marine environment is blessed with a fantastic variety of habitats and underwater rock formations. Comino would make a tremendous marine reserve, if we could be bothered.

I’ve had previous occasion to write about the kind of restoration ecology that Comino needs so desperately (‘Paradise lost, and remade’, The Sunday Times, April 27).

For example, the few dirt roads that are essential to the hotel operations and the residents should be identified and permanently surfaced. Sounds mad but anything’s better than dumping aggregate that ends up on the garigue.

The island also has a wealth of vernacular heritage which mostly dates back several decades to when the population ran into the dozens. Again, it’s falling to pieces.

The building known as ‘Il-forn’ (the bakery), for example, was taken over by the Qala scouts some years ago and then abandoned. Recently, someone walked in and smashed the old terracotta mixing bowls and parts of the oven itself.

I’m sort of tempted to pray for Comino to be forgotten and left to its devices. Sometimes, the less people do, the better.

The problem is that the evidence on the ground tells me the argument doesn’t always work.

mafalzon@hotmail.com