It was with great disappointment that I listened to Minister Mario de Marco during a discussion regarding the environment on One TV’s Affari Tagħna (January 5).

It was sad to see a minister putting in doubt the honesty and integrity of Astrid Vella, of Flimkien għal Ambjent Aħjar, with accusations of fabricating a story regarding Villa Mekrech as well as insinuating that the photos she presented as evidence of illegally chainsawed old olive trees within the garden could have been taken elsewhere.

Regarding that accusation, the public deserves to know that, since that programme, Mepa’s enforcement officer has reported: “We were mistaken in the report of inspection dated November 21, 2012 in stating that this was one of the transplanted trees”.

The Mepa officer now admits that this is an illegally destroyed

tree. This destruction was reported in July 2010. Why did it take two and a half years for it to be confirmed, and only at the insistence of FAA?

Dr de Marco’s comment that FAA compliments Mepa when they do right and complain when they go against the wishes of people was beneath him.

He patronisingly stated that in his 30 years as a lawyer he has learned to accept that some cases you win and others you lose, and that Ms Vella should learn that lesson too.

The FAA press releases I read questioned whether Mepa respected or broke its own regulations.

What does Dr de Marco expect, that FAA only praises and never criticises?

What he fails to understand is that when he loses a case he can always go to an impartial and autonomous court of appeal, while NGOs, when appealing a Mepa decision, address an appeals tribunal which is neither autonomous nor impartial.

Proof of this, to name one instance, is that when Mepa refused the permit to build up Villa Chappelle’s garden, this was allowed by the appeals tribunal.

The other difference is that when an NGO loses a case or appeal at Mepa, the environment they try to defend is lost forever.

It is gone with no possibility of our islands ever getting it back.