I nostalgically recall my favourite campfire song in my youth. Like My Darling Clementine, the Maltese countryside is being systematically eroded and, soon, it will be “lost and gone forever” if this prolonged unscrupulous development, wanton neglect and insensitive destruction continues unabated.
Throughout the last 10 years, the Ramblers’ Association has sadly encountered the unauthorised closure of ancient paths that, by birth right, belong to us all, an unusual increase in No Entry signs and other threatening notices, the obvious encroachment and misappropriation of public and historic sites, increasing hostility from various sources, attempts at intimidation by stray dogs, the rape of the countryside with the sudden disappearance of aediculae, sun dials, notarial marble slabs, the destruction of rubble walls and rural paths flanked by illegal high walls. The list is endless.
In these environmental travesties, the Ramblers’ Association strongly rebuts Mepa’s suggested amnesty considering it an anathema, a dismal failure and an insult to future generations.
Mepa is aware of these infringements and their relative penalty if an enforcement order is ignored. It can simply request the relative fine to be paid within six months and, if the illegality is not rectified, the penalty is doubled every six months.
If the owner does not comply, then Mepa should have the authority to get things right and get the transgressor to foot the bill.
Thus, the planning authority will ensure that it will have enough funds to be fully efficient and serve as a guardian of our natural environment.
What is truly very worrying is that Malta’s decline down the morass of its philistine environmental shambles is hardly perceived by its 400,000 citizens except by ramblers and other nature lovers.
The recent past has been notable in the destruction of our countryside and coastal zones and it is high time to stop the rot. If Mepa cannot do the job, the State should step in because, according to the Constitution, the government is the guardian of our natural heritage.
Over the past five decades, we have succeeded in achieving unimaginable social and economic progress; real poverty has undoubtedly disappeared from the Maltese islands and living standards have quadrupled.
We rightly boast that our infantile mortality rate is among the lowest in the world while life expectancy is among the best in Europe. This is a veritable achievement after centuries of colonial administration.
Deprived of the natural beauty bestowed upon it, Malta would be a veritable concrete jungle and a dismal wasteland
But have we matched this bonanza with a spiritual regeneration in the form of genuine love of our countryside and coastal zones?
After 50 years of unassisted growth, the euphoria of post-Independence Malta has spluttered and died out. At the heart of the problem is money and the Oliver Twist syndrome, a chronic malaise that is eroding and nibbling away our beloved countryside where prime agricultural areas with unrivalled scenic beauty have been taken over by the new mulas (feudal lords) for their exclusive use and, in the process, they have usurped previously public paths.
Unlike our redoubtable ancestors, who would have rebelled against such situations, an indifferent nation has, all along, been impotently witnessing the one same phenomenon but without a single sign of protest.
All civilised counties consider ancient tracks, even prehistoric ones, trodden by their forefathers as public by birth right. In my last visit to Il-Qlejgħa tal-Baħrija, that majestic tongue of land overlooking Ras ir-Raheb, which is a Bronze Age village with fantastic scenic views as far as Gozo, I was turned away in no uncertain manner even though there is a narrow hazardous path along the cliffs leading to the prehistoric silos.
The same treatment was accorded to a group of tourists who attempted to visit the Roman remains at Ras il-Wardija in Gozo.
Rambling in Malta in autumn, winter and early spring constitutes an important tourist niche, which the Ramblers’ Association has promoted with limited success because of the many environmental irregularities and the hostility tourists may encounter.
Underlying widespread dis-satisfaction and indignation is the ever-growing suspicion that the majority of the Maltese have stopped caring about our natural heritage. However, I take heart from the fact that, in spite of this doom and gloom, Malta’s winning trump card may be its voluntary youths section in our green NGOs who are very active.
Furthermore, all indications show an exceptional love of our countryside by young children as revealed in various opinion polls. Fortunately, our children are convinced that Malta deprived of the natural beauty bestowed upon it would be a very dismal place indeed, a veritable concrete jungle and a dismal wasteland.
Lino Bugeja is honorary president of the Ramblers’ Association.