The House of Representatives’ Environment and Development Planning Committee met recently to discuss a preliminary report covering the years 2009 - 2015 by the Environment and Resources Authority on the state of the environment.

It showed that while some progress was made on biodiversity, the other areas of the environment highlighted by the ERA, especially Malta’s “number one challenge” of land use, endemic air pollution, residual waste management and others, revealed a depressing state of affairs.

Perhaps the most significant intervention during the Committee meeting came from the Environment Commissioner in the Office of the Ombudsman, who had drafted his own report that was also presented to the House Committee. In it, he advocated strongly that the environment watchdog should be the lead authority making decisions over planning permits in outside development zone areas.

He endorsed his predecessor’s proposal after the demerger that the ERA should be given veto powers on ODZ applications affecting the rural and marine environment. These should be decided by the ERA, he insisted. The overriding logic of this was that it would “empower [the ERA] to decide matters falling within its declared mission of protecting the environment”.

It was a view also endorsed by a Nationalist member of the Committee, who stated that the ERA should not have a secondary role “acting as a consultancy, rather than a decision-making body, on development applications”.

Reacting to this discussion at the Committee hearing, Environment Minister Josè Herrera endorsed the need for the environment regulator to be given greater powers when it came to deciding matters affecting the “natural territory” (land use). He said he did not exclude making formal recommendations in this direction. But, in a complete volte face, winding up a debate in Parliament on the Sustainable Development Bill just a few days later, the same Dr Herrera argued that such a move “could render the Planning Authority useless”. This did not mean the ERA was powerless, he noted, adding that criticism that the ERA was toothless was “exaggerated”.

One wonders whether this sudden change of heart by Dr Herrera came about because he was leant upon either by his Cabinet colleague, the Minister for Infrastructure, who is also responsible for planning, and/or the Prime Minister. While he appeared persuaded when faced by the Environment and Planning Committee to recognise the serious gaps in the government’s approach to the rural environment, specifically ODZ, when he spoke in plenary he did not follow through on his undertaking “to make formal recommendations in that direction”.

It is clear the Minister for the Environment, and this government, lack the political will to salvage Malta’s threatened environment, its uncontrolled urban sprawl and the dire consequences of the helter-skelter drive for construction development that has gripped the country these last five years.

The logic of the argument presented by the Environment Commissioner that the lead position on all matters affecting development projects with an impact on the natural environment and the ecology, specifically all decisions concerning ODZ, should reside with the ERA, not the Planning Authority, is indisputable.

On such matters, the ERA should be primus inter pares. A determination to protect what little rural open countryside is left must be paramount and the terms of reference of the environment watchdog are central to this. Dr Herrera should reconsider his position.

This is a Times of Malta print editorial

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