Some small Italian islands (and at least one in England that I can think of) charge tourists for landing and charge boats for mooring in their bays.

This newspaper reported that 4,000 people visit Comino on an average day in summer. They pollute the island (and the water around it), so why not make them pay for the privilege – on the well-established basis that ‘the polluter pays’ – and so subsidise the expense incurred in keeping the place pristine, as nature intended?

A €10 landing or anchoring fee could potentially raise €40,000 a day...

There would be higher fees for those massive vessels that bring hundreds of people to the island and shove tourist boats out of the way (plus, of course, the tenner for every tourist who disembarks there).

And maybe another €100 for all those ticketless, no-VAT, commercial speedboat operators. (Trust me, at the rates they charge, they could afford it.)

Another tenner per deckchair or umbrella would produce something like €600 or €800.

Charging €100 a day for a static kiosk or to bring any vehicle ashore would be another €500 or maybe €800.

That’s every day in the season.

If the effect was that the usage of the island would drop, that would be no bad thing in itself.

And it could all be run by a couple of otherwise under-employed government or Transport Malta workers in inflatable boats. Not a bad job for the summer months.

It’s an obvious cash cow that the government is unfortunately failing to milk.

Meanwhile, the once beautiful ‘barren and uninhabited’ island is being destroyed by the sheer weight of numbers.