The Attard Residents Environmental Network (AREN) started off as a small project, raising awareness on the importance of protecting Attard’s best assets from obliteration and irreversible damage. Our short, yet very intense journey has taken us on a discovery path, getting to know many farmers and discovering many aspects of Attard that were unfortunately either hidden too well or left to their own devices. 

The journey helped AREN realise that its role in Attard could serve a long-term purpose, away from partisan politics, main stream party agenda and away from controversy.

Unfortunately it seems that one starts to appreciate what he has when the danger of losing it becomes either imminent or when it is just too late.

In its own way, the central link project was an eye-opener, on the need to assess what Attard has and what needs to be protected. AREN started off as the voice of the few and today is proud to be a voice to many residents in their hundreds and thousands who have Attard at heart.

AREN is by no means, attempting to compete with the local council, whose role is very distinct and its function will always be to administer the village, as it is democratically elected. Yet, an environmental network seems to fill in the environmental gap and presents a concept of a stable and long-term community-built organisation, which in tandem with the local council, gives each village importance to its own assets.

AREN started off by understanding the underlying concerns of those residents and farmers directly affected by the proposed by-pass and gradually expanded its mantra towards effectively proposing alternatives to make the project much more sustainable, more effective and certainly less polluting.  Many discussions, and meetings later and a number of proposals are being delivered to the right people who are in a position to take decisions. AREN has one agenda, with few items on it. Protecting our environment,  giving respite to Attard residents from the exaggeratedly high volumes of flowing traffic in the core and its surroundings and  keeping up the pressure and insist on a modal shift of public transportation which is by far the most environmentally friendly and only long-term solution for our densely populated islands.

All with one goal. All with one agenda. To save Attard from becoming one of the busiest traffic magnets in Malta

Attard has one environment for all its residents who in the absolute majority appreciate that once agriculture dies from Attard, the village loses its identity and prestige, making it no different from any other cosmopolitan town in Malta.

The agricultural value of Attard is historical heritage which goes back many decades and which today boasts of a number of very successful ventures. We recently met up with a regional winemaking facility in the outskirts of Attard that grows its own grapes and produces a very prestigious local wine. We also had the great opportunity to meet one of the finest sheep’s cheesemaker who at a mature age of 72 still delivers his fresh product to various villages around Malta.

We met young Jean-Paul, an avid and keen young farmer who would like to follow in his father’s footsteps and preserve the agricultural family traditions through the fourth generation.

We discovered one of Attard’s artists, Steve Bonello, who is inspired by the beauty of the older core of Attard and its architecture and who selflessly declared his support for our cause in saving our patrimony. We found support and solace by the many much larger NGOs, botanic experts like Alfred Baldachino, traffic experts like Maria Attard, architects, engineers and so many more.

All with one goal. All with one agenda. To save ourselves from becoming one of the busiest traffic magnets in Malta.

With limited resources and funds available to progress and keep up for the long-term, we decided to take it a notch higher and register AREN as a fully recognised environmental voluntary organisation. Our statute and all paperwork are works in progress and we hope to complete them soonest, in time to build up on what we started and move towards other areas which may need attention. 

Our contribution to our local community will be diverse and committed towards protecting the environment, raising awareness, monitoring eventual works carried out by the central government and assisting in any way possible to preserve the uniqueness and prestige of Attard.

We hope that our little idea is perhaps taken on board by other towns and villages so that together we can really give our respective local environments a better chance to stand the test of time and regenerate the agricultural aspect of many towns and villages across Malta and Gozo.

In the meantime we appeal to help create a better central link project by signing the representation form in the link http://pa.movimentgraffitti.org/permit/4

Steve Pace is a strategic thinker.