Malta sweet Malta. My home-away-from-home. I am heartbroken over your loss. All our loss, really.
This overweight, athletically challenged American had the privilege of studying at the University of Malta back in 1993/94. I was in great part privileged because I had befriended Maltese nature- and culture-lovers, who forced me to get off my derriere and hike and camp and abseil.
They were ahead of their time in the early 1990s in terms of camping, hiking, diving, biking, parachuting, climbing, abseiling, spelunking, kayaking and archeology – exploring around the country’s three main islands – at a time when getting out into the countryside typically meant going to parks and enjoying family time there. Or hunting birds.
But not the ups and downs and scary cliffs of Malta’s rugged coastline.
Two of these early outdoorsmen, Andrew Galea and Bernard Bonnici, would eventually start up a barely-for-profit Malta Outdoors outfit (www.maltaoutdoors.com ), which would introduce Malta’s nature and culture to a great many European and American tourists from abroad. As well as Maltese tourists from within.
When I was visiting my home-away-from-home again last November, I noticed a great many bikers, walkers and climbers that just weren’t there 25 years ago. They were taking in the incredible array of nature and culture outside of Valletta and the Three Cities. All, I believe, thanks to Bernie and Drew, who have steady jobs outside of the Malta Outdoors eco-vocation.
If a Times of Malta article has not yet been written on them – and about their singular importance in creating outdoors activity, tourism and culture in the country – it really should at this time. Especially as the country considers what to do to satisfy a tourism niche left vacant with the very sad vanishing of the Azure Window in Dwejra.
I believe these and other outdoorsmen would have some intriguing ideas in answering “What now?”
I also believe that their ideas would not entail replacing one natural window tourist with another. Malta has long been vexed with significant tourism pollution that comes with the rich tourism economy. I believe these godfathers of eco-appreciation would be against the further marring of Malta’s incredible nature with quick-replacement interpretative centres, awkward out-of-place art projects and tourist traps.
Perhaps the silver lining of this national disaster could be a renewed effort to preserve and treasure the unspoiled nature that still remains, and making it accessible to more people. Including stemming development that covers up more and more of Malta’s beautiful countryside, as beautiful in its own right as the Azure Window.
Believe me, there are many Europeans, Japanese, Chinese, and Americans who would love to come to Malta to join Maltese in hiking a coastal park system around all three islands.
True, bus-only tourists might be a little too frenzied in sightseeing, and unsure of their footing, to hike such a coastal trail park. But they will, from moving seats high above Malta’s walled roads, enjoy the overall absence of human intrusion on Malta’s natural beauty.
I remain, like a great many around the world, saddened at the world’s loss. But there is a silver lining here. I hope Malta embraces it.