When I read about Transport Malta’s decision to hack down a number of holm oak trees in Lija “as part of roadworks” (ha!), I’m not sure what made me angrier: the trees getting the chop or the chop getting the Environment and Resource Authority’s blessing. Residents’ concerns were chopped too by the specious insistence that permits aren’t necessary outside Urban Conservation Areas. This sort of sophistry makes my blood boil, especially when it comes from an authority charged with preventing, not sanctioning, this sort of thing.
Given the way trees are routinely persecuted in this country, maybe I should have simply shrugged my shoulders. But somehow this Lija business has drawn a red line. It’s not just those in authority. I happen to know quite a few private individuals who can’t bear the sight of soil and who have paved their backyards and gardens. Trees, you see, shed leaves and make a mess, so let’s have a dazzling desert of sterile ceramic tiles instead! In my book: neat is naff – and a bit of a giveaway. Natural ‘un-manicured’ gardens (truly Mediterranean) reflect a person with the right priorities – one who doesn’t have to ‘pretend’.
At the risk of sounding snooty and snotty, therein lies the problem. Maltese public entities don’t just lack aesthetic judgement, they refuse to acknowledge that they do, and submit that shortcoming on the rest of us. I find it extraordinary that residents (be they of Lija or the entire Maltese archipelago) are never consulted. This has made us – until now – much too passive. It’s not surprising that successive governments have had a free hand riding roughshod over our shared heritage and environment.
Few things bring out the spirit of protest in me as much as high-handed officialdom treating Malta as if it were there (theirs?) for the taking, the plucking and the hacking. Aesthetics aside, there’s a major case to be made in favour of shade and the carbon-dioxide-absorbing usefulness of trees. But let’s face it, this is a country progressively uglified by concrete boxes. Trees really can do a hell of a lot to soften those rough angles and edges.
The environmental, planning and transport authorities should be working hand in hand and investing heavily in urban planting and rural forestation
Valley Road may be neither scenic nor coastal, but is easily one of our most beautiful streets and a pleasure to drive through. Why? Because it’s an avenue lined with trees (as they normally are). If it wasn’t, it’d be yet another potholed road to hell lined with showrooms, overlooked by air conditioners and uninhabitable aluminium balconies.
The environmental, planning and transport authorities should be working hand in hand and investing heavily in urban planting and rural forestation. They should not be presiding over the destruction of our green infrastructure. Because that’s precisely what it is – infrastructure. A complex urban/rural ecology reducing temperatures, managing storm water, purifying air, and making our lives healthier and better. So it’s high time trees and soils were safeguarded. Bring on the hands-on arborists (fully trained – not like the University olive tree debacle!) to ensure professional preservation of trees in all development projects.
The Lija incident has embarrassed the Environment Minister. To use a ‘green’ metaphor, he’s now busy defending his turf. But he’s really digging a hole right in the middle of it when he insists that the trees are not a protected species. That’s hardly the point. The point is that greenness and shade were lost. And Lija is the poorer.
I have always credited Herrera with class and taste so I’m prepared to believe that he really didn’t know what was happening (despite living in Lija). In fact, he seems upset by the whole sorry mess and has promised to explore the possibility of landscaping those roads with new trees. But make no mistake: he has blotted his copybook. He simply cannot afford to let others damage his reputation. Ultimately the buck stops with him. That’s an incentive to warn off any authority or ministry trespassing on that turf (or what remains of it). He has what it takes to do that.
What worries me is that authorities have got away with a scorched-earth policy for far too long. This is where the Opposition comes in and where we need some good old public anger, Panama-style. A clear message now needs to be sent to the government that the people of Malta will no longer tolerate such short-sighted squandering of their patrimony. We’re talking the whole lot: trees, old houses, ancestral landscapes, birds and animals, our shores and seas. For far too long both political parties have been lukewarm about them or, at best, inclined to pay lip service alone.
A final thought. I wonder whether there’s not a certain resonance in the Archbishop’s recent reference to carob trees and orange trees. With only 50 or so words to spare, I’m not going to plunge feet first into the gay marriage debate (though I wish we could devote the same passion to actual trees, which are a part of Creation too). But I’ll say this: let’s at least accept the ‘tree-ness’ of all trees, cherish those that we have, and plant many more.
michelaspiteri@gmail.com