AUSTRALIAN ENVIRONMENTAL LAW ENFORCEMENT ASSOCIATION CONFERENCE MALTA JUNE 2015
Address by Simone Mizzi, Executive President, Din l-Art Helwa, national trust of Malta.
Good afternoon and welcome again to Malta an ancient land marked
by thousands of years of human activity with a legacy built in stone
and set in a unique Mediterranean landscape that is extraordinary, a
patrimony of numerous monuments and landmarks worthy of
preservation perhaps disproportionate to its size. It is a great honour
for me to welcome you to our shores on behalf of Din l-Art Helwa, the
voluntary national trust of Malta and to share our experiences,
challenges and achievements over the last fifty years since our
foundation in the protection of our heritage.
As we have just heard, the island has been central to Mediterranean
activity for seven thousand years, our destiny entwined with that of
the great powers that ruled over this central sea. Malta’s desirability
as an island was due not just to its location but to the safe haven
offered by its many deep harbours to the fleets that brought
successive ruling powers to its shores and defended it as their
stronghold. Without going into a very long lesson in Maltese history,
we have had the Phoenicians, Romans, Arabs, Angevins. We were part
of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies under the Bourbon kings of Naples
till Malta was ceded to the Order of the Knights of Malta by Charles V
in 1530 after they were ousted by the Ottoman Empire from Rhodes
and this hospitaller monastic order, themselves an early from of
European Union, were here to 1798. Napoleon was here for a week
and forged many structural and legislative changes in just a few days,
and the French domination lasted two years. Malta did not take to
French discipline and invited Britain to take us under its wing as a
protectorate and Malta retained this status till attaining
Independence in 1964.
We remain a vibrant part of the
Commonwealth till today, with CHOGM being held here in November
and share a privileged place with you in this great league of nations.
Malta enjoyed three great periods of building that are worthy of
preservation: the Neolithic, where vestiges of 27 self sustaining stone
structures, we call temples in this small island bear witness to the
presence of a great civilisation that disappeared without trace, much
earlier than Stonehenge. The grand baroque replacing early medieval
settlements and installing miles and miles of fortifications, and the
British period’s neoclassic to modernist now being revalued daily.
Losing its dependency on the fleet meant turning to other ways of
economic stability, so of course we have post independence tourism
and modern Malta, the most massive fourth building boom, but
whether this becomes heritage is for future generations to judge.
The British civil service gave us a strong administrative system which
we enjoy even now and this had provided for a Museums
Department, a Government Property Division that managed lands and
the government estate, and an efficient Aesthetics Board. More about
what happened to this later. 2004 was an important year for Malta
as it voted to be part of the European Union where we play an
important role right in the cross roads between Europe and North
Africa. Into this medley we must throw in the impact of religion on
our architecture as the presence of our faith can be felt in every small
village in Malta, each one can boast a cathedral, and it is a fact that
we have as many churches as there are days in the year. You will see
yourselves tomorrow when you visit Hagar Qim, the evidence that
Malta was a place where peoples converged to worship or enjoy ritual
as far back as four thousand years ago, long before Paul arrived in
AD60 to bring us the Roman Catholic Faith, its many baroque domes
populate our skyline so beautifully, and in themselves a challenge to
preserve with the new high rise legislation just having come into being
which is of great concern to us.
I say all this because while our legacy in stone has been handed down
by the many people that occupied this island, who have intermingled
to create a rare genetic mix of people which are today the Maltese we
have never till independence much been involved with its necessity or
upkeep. The structures were not ours, they were built by those who
needed them, and so ingraining a sense of responsibility into those
who govern has been a very low departure point for us in
conservation. Next comes fast growth, too fast for us to handle and
a GDP that is an envy of most European nations and we continue to
grow. But it comes at a price. As an island central to European
identity, we evolve by forever mixing with those who arrive here for
work, for pleasure or just because they love being here. 21 miles by
7, holding 430,000 persons and some 1.5 million visitors a year all
generating their own activity, a varied economy which gives it its
strength BUT all impacting on the limited space and the huge number
monuments and cityscapes worthy of preservation that are set within
unique landscapes, themselves worthy of conservation. You will see
that we MUST as you do consider our open spaces part of our essential
heritage and not just the built heritage they contain.
It is interesting for you to know that as a result of early Din l-Art Helwa
networking for independent Malta, the Maltese government brought
in Unesco to start an exercise in 1975 to list the inventory of
monuments that should be saved. Unesco concluded that Malta
possessed as many monuments and landmarks worthy of preservation
per square mile as much as Rome which tops world charts in sheer
number, but Rome is a city and Malta is a country so we really are in
top position. Herein lies the challenge. How to preserve all that has
been left and yet allow successive generations to create their own
activity, generate work and wealth, aspire to new economic
standards, without destroying the immense beauty of our built and
natural resources.
This requires a firm hand, strong legislation, and education that must
go hand in hand with enforcement, of which you are the experts.
So having inherited miles and miles of fortifications from each era,
places of worship that go back 7000 years, urban spaces that contain
noble and dignified palazzi to simple humble vernacular itself unique
in the Mediterranean, what have we done to protect our heritage and
how did Din l-Art Helwa impact on all this? We were only involved in
the building of them over these centuries, and only physically not
emotionally, except during war time, now suddenly we were in charge
of their conservation.
It was clear that with independence Malta had a challenge to look
after its historic buildings. The British Defence Budget alone spent 5.5
million pounds yearly to keep its defence and administrative
structures in top condition utilising and upgrading those left by the
Order of the Knights so they were truly always state of the art.
Suddenly that contribution was no longer there, and deterioration
was quick to set in. This is when the national trust of Malta was
formed. It was evident then that the newly founded independent
state with a government looking for new economic stability could not
look after its assets on its own and in most times did not even
understand its worth. IT is therefore so commendable that
institutions like the International National Trusts Organisation
founded by Professor Simon Molesworth helps emerging nations to
recognise their heritage both at political and civic level.
Din l-Art Helwa, meaning This Beautiful Land, was founded in 1965
soon after Independence to assist the State with its responsibilities
laid out in Section 2, Article 9 of our Constitution to protect and
safeguard our heritage and the natural environment, its mission taken
directly from the Constitution. This directs the state to protect the
historic and artistic patrimony of the nation and the landscape. I will
just dwell on this for a moment and come back to it later.
This all important Article is sadly not within that part of our
Constitution which in enforceable nor can it be brought to a court of
law by any action on the part of a citizen. It is only directional and
should be utilised by a self respecting government in the drawing up
of its management of the country’s assets, the most valuable one due
to its scarcity is land. The state has the right to legislate for the use of
land, and it is assumed it should legislate responsibly and for the
common good. This alone should afford sufficient protection of our
heritage resources. However, with the pressures brought about by
new economic aspirations and a government for decades constituted
by only two main political parties who have to pander to the voter to
stay in power and, who, till recently, enjoyed only a very slim margin
of seats between them, this has meant that the environment and our
built spaces have been held to ransom. We are a very happy nation
as long as we are allowed to use our land to turn the wheels of the
economy, the EU in fact found we are the happiest people within the
community. The need for more and more residences, for tourism
structures, for new industrial spaces, for offices, for the regeneration
of our agriculture, and a strong development and construction lobby
has put our heritage resources under great pressure, so all
administrations since independence have allowed a free development
of our economy. I always mention our our open spaces, our rural areas
countryside and coast as the greater part of our heritage context that
requires protection as it is our major resource. For us living here these
give us our quality of life and our wellbeing.
Since its formation in 1965, Din l-Art Helwa has lobbied for legislation
for the protection of cultural heritage and the environment, for its
enforcement and for education. It was founded by a group of
visionary persons, whose leader, himself an upright and much loved
judge inspired by the love of his country but also by deep rooted
beliefs in the right of the individual, challenged each subsequent
government to protect and enhance cultural heritage and the
landscape. He was followed by five inspired leaders who continue to
challenge the system till this very day with Acts of Parliament taking
place even today that will impact on Malta’s future heritage forever.
To raise awareness and communicate the value of heritage, Din l-Art
Helwa felt that there was nothing better than the power of example,
and has led in the restoration of heritage sites long before
conservation became a science and now funded to a great extent by
the European Union, the benefit of which you will see when you
admire our gleaming bastions and restored Valletta palaces. In the 50
years since foundation, Din l-Art Helwa has saved some forty national
monuments and landmarks for the nation through restoration. We
manages some 19 of them in guardianship or in trust from the state
of ecclesiastical authorities. We do this with no financial aid from the
state in order to retain our independent voice, but with funds raised
independently through sponsorships, the individual generosity of the
business community where corporate social responsibility
programmes are now of great impact, and our own volunteer activity.
The example has served well since now there is a State Entity, Heritage
Malta that manages the main national sites, you will be meeting them
tomorrow. Furthermore, many other NGOs have been born that have
taken an interest in the preservation of heritage and look after other
sites entrusted from the state.
To assess the achievements and challenges of Din l-Art Helwa over the
years, one would have to know the history of environmental and
heritage legislation over the last fifty years, and I would not wish you
to have to suffer through that, especially as I am no expert at it. The
organisation has is present for the improvement to heritage at every
moment and every opportunity. We have pushed for legislation when
there was none, and pushed for improved legislation when it was
insufficient. The law is everything, if it is then used, and that is where
education and enforcement come in. A Town and Country Planning
Act was laid down in the late sixties but never put into function
effectively, to be thrown out by a different government in the
seventies. Land and property were administered as commodities for
years through a ministry. It was at this time that sadly the very good
Aesthetics Board that had kept Malta’s streetscapes quite pristine was
also disbanded. Finally after many years of planning meandering in
limbo, in 1992 Malta enacted its first Strategic Plan for Environment
and Development, in 1996 Scheduling of monuments began and an
independent Malta Environment and Planning Authority was
established, its responsibilities are very clearly laid out in the
Environment and Development Planning Act of 2010. This Authority
was set up to be independent but it is still very much directed by
government and therefore its direction is political. MEPA as we call it,
is a monstrous machine that rubber stamps development. It requires
another machine to balance it, which civic society should NOT have to
provide, but in the absence of political will, it does its best to do. This
authority has done a few good things, speeded up scheduling, but is
poor on its enforcement the result of its administration, environment
and heritage protection can easily be judged by the heavy urban
landscape that has developed since its inception some of it illegally.
Civic society has done its best to provide the balance, armed now with
the provisions of the Aarhus Convention which gives us the right to
environmental information and the right to make our voice heard, but
because Section 9 is not enforceable sadly not to be listened to, not
yet!
As I said we are a very happy nation, and live alongside illegality or
even part of it quite peacefully. We have policies that govern
everything, the use of water, pollution, use of pesticides, but unless
these are enforced we have nothing. And each government has to
keep its people happy, allowing illegal building of whole towns, illegal
boreholes that threaten our aquifers, and much else so it rests on
NGOs and heritage lovers to provide the barbs to spur government
into action.
In fact Din l-Art Helwa was also of impact on the formulation of the
National Environment Policy which was launched in 2012 to bring
Malta in line with EU legislation following the acquis and this has had
a positive impact on infrastructural standards governing the quality of
our air, our bathing water, waste management and even a few of our
roads….The EU however does not legislate on the use of land, despite
Sustainability Legislation it allows member states to decide how best
to use its spaces. Malta today is the most densely built up area in
Europe, and though statistics say only 33% of our territory is built up,
it is more like 70% when we take the road networks, and quarries into
consideration.
Perhaps the first real break for heritage came about in 2001 a result
of a sad episode that was to bring about much good. What Venice in
Peril and the floods of Florence did for Europe in the sixties when
many European conservation movements were created and many
NGOS and scientific bodies like ICOMOS were founded, Mnajdra
which you will see tomorrow, did for Malta in 2001.
We were woken up on Good Friday morning, in April 2001, to the news
that a vandalistic attack on the Neolithic temples had happened, a
result of some struggle over rights of neighbouring land. Fortunately
the megaliths were strong enough to survive. However, civic society
took to the streets.
With your dear friend Martin Scicluna as
President, Din l-Art Helwa led a campaign for improved heritage
management with the leading local newspaper, took a Heritage Map
into all Malta’s schools, spread the word on a 13 part series on TV,
worked with lawyers and the culture ministry, and finally the Cultural
Heritage Act was enacted in 2002. This was crucial. The state
assumed responsibility hitherto rooted in a very outdated museums
department of all national sites and monuments, and created Heritage
Malta, the state entity that was to manage and operate its sites.
Government at the time, even asked two members of our
organisation, of which I was one, to assist set it up. The Act went
further.
It gave the right to NGOs to hold cultural assets in
Guardianship. We had looked after some ten heritage sites, restoring
them ourselves, but had no legal tenure over them, technically we
were squatters! Martin was unflinching in his campaign to see this
legislation through and he succeeded. In February 2003 Din l-Art
Helwa was the first NGO to enter into agreement with the government
of Malta to manage national sites under strict terms and conditions
which ensure that they are well preserved. Today we hold 13 sites
from the state and four from the church in a trust we had set up much
earlier with the ecclesiastical authorities. I hope while on your way to
Valletta you can visit this beautiful church, the first building and
church of Valletta, Our Lady of Victory, built by the Knights of Malta in
thanksgiving for their victory against the Ottoman invaders in 1565.
We are well into completion of the preservation of this extraordinary
artistic and historic monument, a unique example of the legacy
resulting from the struggle for supremacy of faith and war in the
Mediterranean.
The Cultural Heritage Act also gave us a right to sit on the Committee
of Guarantee, the national watchdog entrusted with overseeing the
good function of this heritage legislation where we make our voices
heard till this day. However again it is up to ministerial direction as to
whether it listens to it or not. Just last week we challenged the lack of
policy for new swimming pools being granted on the roof tops of
Valletta, so we do work at this level of detail, and many of our ideas
are indeed taken up.
As heritage activists we have lobbied for the setting up of national
parks, and in 2007 the first ever national park was set up in the North
West of Malta, saving it from the building of golf courses. In a
federation of three NGOs, Din l-Art Helwa is responsible for the
management of this beautiful piece of wilderness, striking coastline,
with its rare pockets of Mediterranean maquis and precious garigue,
full of rich medicinal herbs, and many examples of defence and
vernacular buildings that live alongside sustainably with a thriving
agricultural practice. With this example, we are also pushing for
legislation to grant more protected land in the south of Malta, for
more green spaces to be retained or reintroduced into our suffocating
urban environment and are making quite good progress.
In 2013, in a great civic action, we almost, I say almost, brought about
change to legislation to cancel out the sad and outdated practice of
hunting in the spring. I mention this issue because it impinges on the
citizen’s right to unhindered use of our limited countryside, and for
the protection of biodiversity upon which I know in Australia you are
so strong, in this case for the protection of two species on the
European conservation list: the turtle dove and the quail, two
migratory birds that fly back to their northern breeding grounds from
Africa in the Spring when they go home to roost and breed their
young. An Anti Spring hunting coalition, led entirely by 13 NGOS and
Malta’s small Green Party, brought about an abrogative referendum
that challenged the right of government to allow a limited 20 day
spring hunting season to open each year. We needed 41000 signed
petitions or 10% of the population to bring about a referendum citing
the Consitutional right to do this. We worked hard to obtain these,
and the courts found in our favour, obliging government to hold this
referendum. Both political parties promised they would keep out of
the struggle between environmentalists and the extremely strong
hunting lobby, some 9000, who hold political parties to ransom with
their votes at each general election. Well there was a huge turnout of
the electorate, we are good at that here, some 87% turned out to vote.
For a mere 1111 votes, and only after both political leaders came onto
the stage to publically find in favour of spring hunting, this great rise
to action was lost. I say this as it is a good example to show that
conservation of heritage today and of our environment is also held in
sway in exactly the same way with building lobbies and developers
wanting their way in exchange for votes. However, it has been a great
eye opener for both sides of government who suddenly saw that there
is a great rising green voice, that is out there with awakened
conscience, waiting to be reckoned with.
Over the last few years Din l-Art Helwa has been instrumental in
formulating thought even at a European level through Europa Nostra,
the pan European federations of some 262 heritage NGOs. This was
to take part in the initiative Cultural Heritage Counts for Europe and
to learn from it. It is money that makes politicians turn to action, so it
is essential to show heritage generates financial contribution and
stability and not just to our cultural identify and well being. This
recent study shows that for every euro invested there is a return
coefficient of 26, a ratio no other industry can boast of. We must use
these at international level now to prove the economic worth of
heritage assets so governments sit up and listen. Our challenge is to
put cultural heritage as the fourth obligatory pillar of sustainability,
along with the economic, social and environmental considerations,
and to therefore enforce the protection of cultural assets when any
development activity is initiated. I believe we will get there, and hope
it will not be too late.
It is interesting that you are here at this very moment. Today in
Parliament Government is discussing Malta’s new Strategic Plan for
Environment and Development, updating the first regulating policy of
1992. This is so important to the good governance for the use of our
spaces, and all the more important to us where open space and the
heritage it contains is so challenged. Din l-Art Helwa has fought tooth
and nail against this new law in the making for the last two years ever
since the new ruling government stated in its electoral manifesto of
2013 that it would relax the laws to favour economic development,
permit building in rural areas, remove the environmental function of
the Planning Authority and remotely place it elsewhere. We have
taken action on all fronts to improve this legislation which is to allow
much institutional and individual construction again, even in zones
hitherto deemed protected. We have managed to sway the direction
of this unacceptable Strategic Plan slightly, and have succeeded in
inserting clauses that should oblige new buildings to be directed first
to the reuse of existing building, and second to be located within
existing urban areas.
The government did accept these
recommendations which came purely from Din l-Art Helwa now at the
eleventh hour.
Alarmingly the government then inserted new clauses which state
that projects that are deemed to be unfeasible in urban areas may be
built in out of development zones, and other projects of sustainable
nature could also be built therein. We had to take to the streets again
this very last week in an unprecedented public protest joined this time
by 22 NGOS including those working on human rights and members of
both political parties. So times are changing. But if we lose this round
so that the words ‘feasible projects’ and ‘sustainable projects’ are
inserted into this new Strategic Policy for any buildings in protected
areas then all will be lost.
Until the right to a good environment is enforceable through citizen
action in our Constitution or a new law of Public Domain is enacted
than we cannot prevent our legislators from legislating as they wish.
The fate of our heritage and our environment remains in the balance
very much at ministerial whim. If there are constitutions out there
that do give this right to the citizen, we would do well to emulate them
and try to bring them into force. Till then Din l-Art Helwa will continue
to keep its big mouth open in the pursuit of good governance.
This is no secret, it has been in the newspapers and on internet for all
to see. Although we are in closed walls, I am quite happy if you tell
the world about this potential loss to our natural and built
environment. In the meantime, we are a very happy and loving nation,
and enjoy extending hospitality to our visitors. Foreigners return as
much for our friendship and welcoming disposition, as for our
heritage, and that I am sure these qualities we will never lose. I truly
wish you a very happy stay in Malta and a very successful conference.
SIMONE MIZZI, DIN L-ART HELWA 30 JUNE 2015