There are few issues on these islands on which the PN and PL see eye to eye and play ball, and when this happens all civil society can do is sit and watch.

Fireworks is just one of the issues, given its vote-laden potential, with exponents on both sides of the political divide strategically invited to serve as honorary president of this or that fireworks society or band club.

In the headlines recently was the anomalous decision by both parties to basically give the cold shoulder to a court ruling (issued after 30 years of ‘deliberation’) in a case instituted by farmers in Mosta over a fireworks factory which did not respect the prescribed 183-metre buffer from private property. The PN and the PL agreed to move the goalposts by revising the Explosive Ordnance Bill, under which the prescribed minimum distance from any residential development will now be measured from the ‘centre’ of the gunpowder magazine.

The Planning Authority will also have more powers of discretion when it considers new fireworks factories which do not respect the minimum distance. And the Commissioner of Police will simply do the PA’s bidding, leaving aggrieved citizens hapless, with no option but to move away from a fireworks factory too close to their property.

What did not hit the headlines are the ongoing attempts by our planning authorities to sanction fireworks factories built prior to the set cut-off date of 1994, simply through the DNO procedure. This is the flimsiest of planning procedures, not even requiring the Planning Authority to consult with external bodies like the ERA (even if the factory is sited within an area of ecological importance) or with the public in general, essentially throwing transparency to the dogs.

The Planning Authority is proposing to add a new class (number 22) of development, misleadingly labelled as ‘Existing development related to Malta’s Culture and Tradition’, to be eligible for fast-track sanctioning.

Environmentalists normally bristle when such generic terms as ‘culture’ and ‘tradition’ are deployed, since hindsight advises that the door might be opened for illegal development of other genres, not just fireworks factories, to be sanctioned by virtue of this new legislation. A nominal DNO fee is to be paid by the holder of the fireworks factory licence to accede to the proposed sanctioning, even if the planning infringements in question might be major, while perpetrators of much less substantial ODZ planning infringements are (rightly) requested to pay through their nose to accede to sanctioning.

Just three submissions have been made to the public consultation launched by the PA on the proposed repulsive sanctioning opportunity, all hailing from the environmental NGO side (Flimkien Għall-Ambjent Aħjar and Friends of the Earth). The deadline for making such submissions is tomorrow ( http://meae.gov.mt ).

It is deeply ironic that in this day and age, when talk of ‘rule of law’ dominates the airwaves, the PN and PL are in cahoots to appease yet another lobby – fireworks enthusiasts

I am pretty sure that the public’s response would have been more corpulent had the environmental implications of such a sleight of hand been made obvious to all.

It is deeply ironic that in this day and age, when talk of ‘rule of law’ dominates the airwaves, the PN and PL are in cahoots to appease yet another lobby – that of fireworks enthusiasts – possibly to the detriment of public safety, health (fireworks are big contributors of particulate matter and of perchlorate to our atmosphere and soil) and other users of the countryside.

This mature ficus tree of venerable age, right in the heart of Palermo, is not seen as a nuisance or hazard but as an essential asset to city dwellers. The attitude towards urban trees could not be more different in Malta.

The ‘pull-down pronto’ brigade…

The ongoing road-widening projects along the Ħamrun-Marsa bypass and the proposed works in Mellieħa leading down to Miżieb will invariably lead to the loss of many mature indigenous trees. As if this were not enough, we have now turned our sights on ‘dangerous roadside branches’.

Without downplaying in any way the scale of last Monday’s tragedy in Żurrieq, which resulted in the untimely demise of two tourists and the maiming of many others, one cannot but raise eyebrows at the mounting campaign to demonise roadside trees while papering over our lack of urban planning and traffic management.

As if the current national road-widening enterprise is not felling enough mature trees, the Żurrieq accident has provided renewed firepower to motorists who regard roadside trees as competitors for space. No sooner had a viral post done the rounds on social media that a mature Aleppo pine in Lija was chopped down lock, stock and barrel, in a perfect example of a knee-jerk reaction by our Civil Protection Department.

No attempt absolutely was made to prune or to save the tree in question. Deploying the chainsaw is infinitely simpler than engaging in some serious soul-searching, which would surely reveal that our roads cannot handle the ever-burgeoning volumes of traffic and that parts of the road network are simply not accessible to double-deckers and to large trucks.

The current onslaught on roadside and urban trees is symptomatic of the disdain with which our society generally views trees. Doing the rounds between Castille Square to the Mellieħa Sanctuary Square, we are comfortable with a watered-down version of landscaping in the form of small shrubs, doing away with dense tree canopy because this detracts from our enjoyment of historical buildings, continuously sheds leaves which would need to be swept up and houses annoying birds which sully cars with their excreta.

Transport authorities and roadside contractors are increasingly resorting to planting exotic tree species, such that their eventual uprooting a few years down the line would not cause excessive angst as would be the case for indigenous species. The thousands of trees we are supposed to be planting each year are reserved for remote areas lest they interfere with our growing urban needs, essentially turning our living spaces into cluttered concrete and asphalt traps shorn of any shades of green.

So, while fireworks factories which are too close for comfort to residential development are not considered as an operational hazard to public health, roadside trees definitely are. My hunch is that we will see much more of the chainsaw in the coming weeks and that the ‘pull down pronto’ social media brigade will have even more field days.

alan.deidun@gmail.com