News

The Malta Independent, 12 August 2008 – The other day I wrote a letter to another daily newspaper on the inherent environmental contradictions on the local scene. One of the questions I raised was how can one take the government’s commitment in favour of the Malta Environment and Planning Authority reform seriously when the government appointed board members, at one stage...

Sunday Times of Malta, 10 August 2008 – Calculated on a per-capita basis, Malta is the ninth thirstiest country in the world. We are extracting groundwater from our aquifers at a rate that is more than twice the sustainable rate (possibly more, but we do not know for certain, as the greater part of the extraction is illegal) – which means...

Times of Malta, 23rd July 2008 – Editorial At the launch of the Union for the Mediterranean in Paris, the Prime Minister returned to his promise to invest in a 75-100 MW deep offshore wind farm 20 miles off Malta to be constructed in the next five years. However bold this project may look, such an announcement raises many questions. First of...

Maltatoday, 20 July 2008     At the summit of the Mediterranean Union in Paris last weekend, the Prime Minister spoke about climate change and rightly noted that Malta was among the first to put this topic on the agenda of an international forum. Nobody mentioned that we are falling among the last when it comes to doing...

Times of Malta, 21 July 2008, Editorial – The phrase “the environmental deficit” was used by The Times last autumn to describe the sins of omission and commission in Malta’s environment. It became part of the lexicon of the general election campaign when the Prime Minister promised that, if re-elected, he would overcome the environmental deficit as he had successfully conquered...

Maltatoday, 6th July 2008   A new chairman of the Malta Environment and Planning Authority has been appointed. We wish him well, recognising that he has a formidable task ahead to sort out the many insidious problems lurking within the organisation that he has accepted to captain. The current problems are not of his making, but he now has the duty of trying...

The Malta Independent, 7th July 2008 – Editorial The Malta Environment and Planning Authority may have had all the good intentions to facilitate the work of journalists, but last Thursday’s incident does not help in any way to restore the credibility that the authority has gradually lost over the years. Journalists attending the hearing to determine the approval or otherwise of the...

The Malta Independent, 7th July 2008, by Annaliza Borg – The Commissioner for Voluntary Organisations, Kenneth Wain is working to incorporate all voluntary organisations into the legal system according to the law which came into effect last December. As from last February, voluntary organisations were able to start their enrolment process with the commissioner in order for them to be legally recognised....

Times of Malta, 1st July 2008 The concept of “Gozo as an ecological island” has been around quite a while. I first heard about it some six years ago when an expatriate living in Gozo, Terence Calnan, first sounded out the idea with the Ministry of Gozo. In 2006, a team of researchers from Europe’s largest research organisation, Fraunhofer, proposed that...