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Updated 12.41pm
A Nationalist government would draft a long-term plan stretching to 2050 for Malta’s environment, create a national agency to manage Malta’s protected parks and introduce parliamentary checks on the development of ODZ land, party leader Simon Busuttil said today.
Speaking at a press conference held in Żonqor, where a campus for the American University is to be built, Dr Busuttil unveiled some of the PN’s environmental proposals for the upcoming general election.
"Our economic model considers the environment to be a help rather than a hindrance to the economy," he said. "The two are not opposing forces."
Dr Busuttil pledged to save Żonqor from development and said he would introduce checks requiring major projects on ODZ land to be approved by 2/3 parliamentary majority, even if they have been recommended for approval by the PA'.
The 2050 plan pledged by the PN would include interim targets and ensure long-term planning in the environmental sector.
Dr Busuttil, however, said he would rip up an existing Strategic Plan for the Environment and Development, which he dismissed as “half-baked”, and start afresh.
The Planning Authority and Environmental and Resources Authority would be given fresh autonomy by a PN government, he said, to protect them from political meddling, with environmental NGOs granted a stronger representative voice within them.
Other PN environmental proposals unveiled this morning include:
- Returning the White Rocks development area to the public and turning the site into a national park
- Developing an undersea eco-museum which would help foster marine life and attract more diving tourism
- Introducing stricter penalties for fish farm pollution and ensuring pens were kept far offshore
- Outlawing any land reclamation from the sea intended purely for speculative purposes
- Rehabilitate valleys such as Wied Għomor
- Review an existing high-rise policy