The long-promised Eco-Gozo plan would have to go thorugh a strategic environmental assessment (SEA) for it to be comprehensive, Friends of the Earth said.

In a statement, it commended the government for following up on the plan saying this should hopefully serve as a test case which would eventually lead to a similar plan being implemented on a national level.

However, such a plan would not be comprehensive unless it went through an SEA. As no mention of SEA was made by Gozo Minister Giovanna Debono this morning when she announced that the plan was to be presented to Cabinet in the coming days, FoE wondered whether such a study had been made or was forthcoming.

"If this were not the case, then it does not add up that Cabinet approves a plan that should have been subject to an SEA by the proponent." An SEA was required to be in line with current legislation and directives, it said.

Without an SEA, Cabinet would be unaware whether all the possible likely significant effects of implementing the plan had been examined. For this looked at a larger range of activities than an environmental impact assessment and also took socio-economic effects into consideration.

An SEA could provide a broad indication of potential impacts that might arise, also giving weight to the consideration of alternatives and cumulative effects.

Sustainable development considerations were hence brought into the mechanism at an early stage through the execution of an SEA, FoE said.