We are told that the Planning Authority (PA) wants to increase public participation in local Environment Impact Assessments (EIAs) in line with Malta's obligations as a signatory to the Aarhus Convention. Therefore new or improved EIA regulations will become policy soon. But isn't this somewhat reinventing the wheel?

Perhaps not many are aware that past PA regulations on EIA already included public participation as an important part of the EIA procedure. In fact recently, specifically on the 29th of April, BICREF had informed the media that current policy and design guidelines issued by the PA for EIAs, which already included the statement that "Copies of the Environment Impact Statement and the development application will be circulated for comment to government departments and agencies, NGOs and others and will be available for inspection by the public", were being ignored by the PA. This became clear when BICREF legitimately asked the PA for a copy of the tuna penning EIA report and was refused this copy by the PA itself. The PA simply stated that if BICREF members needed to inspect the report they would have to do so during office hours and at two places: the Environment Protection Department (EPD) or the PA. One may therefore only hope that the new EIA regulations will not be utterly ignored as the past ones and that other than making part of the EIA information available, as a summary, the real details are disseminated for the interested public to consider in full.

Surely, the Planning Authority realises that public participation includes not only clearly and fully informing the public but also unequivocally demonstrating that the public's serious consideration of and contribution to an EIA is respected and valued by the PA itself.

Local EIAs, as demonstrated in many past developments and especially in the recent tuna penning development proposal, seem to be ineffective in their goal to undertake detailed assessments that would really highlight the likely effects of the development on different local entities, particularly the local environment and the local established socio-economic status (e.g. fishing and tourism). Indeed as one may have noted the public consultation phase that should last up until the PA public hearing was no consultation at all in the tuna penning case, since important and relevant points raised by the public who had both the interest and courage to participate in the PA's public hearing, were completely ignored by the Environment Management Unit (EMU) of the PA. The latter gave no replies to the comments or points, raised by the PRO of the National Fishing Co-operative, Mr. Portanier.

Indeed the following three questions that were put forward verbally by me (as academic member of the Department of Biology, University of Malta, undertaking research on Mediterranean bluefin tuna and on conservation biology of locally endangered species/habitats) at the public hearing also remained without reply or consideration by the EMU of the PA.

1. On what basis were the tuna penning EIA's statements regarding local protected species, such as dolphins and turtles, deduced when there appeared no cited references in the EIA statements. In particular the following EIA statement: "While cetaceans and marine turtles might occasionally traverse the area proposed for the tuna-farm, this site is not known to have a resident population nor is it a known feeding, breeding or nursery area for any of these protected species" was contradicted by my research experience and expertise on local cetaceans. Speaking after years of marine research around the Maltese Islands it was possible for me to confirmed that indeed local dolphin groups make use of coastal waters for feeding and rearing of their young even in the proposed site. My ongoing research had already produced the only local scientific results on cetaceans and these were presented at several international conferences. One such scientific paper had also been forwarded to the Environment Protection Department in 1999 for reference. What is worse is that my observations were forwarded as part of a written and detailed report to the EPD for consideration prior to the PA's public hearing. So one has to seriously pose the question on whether dolphins and other endangered species (both resident and migratory) are locally only protected on paper.

2. Why was the area proposed for tuna penning not going to be monitored for at least a year prior to the onset of this new type of project, in order to obtain a year round set of data that would allow better monitoring of the effects once the project started? On the contrary brief sampling and few inspections carried out on the site is all that now will constitute the control study and assessment of this area prior to the development.

3. Why were MARPOL regulations concerning prevention of pollution from ships the only ones stressed, in connection with pollution, in the tuna penning EIA if: i) annexes I and II of the MARPOL regulations are obvious local regulations already in force, for the prevention of sources of pollution by oil and noxious substances in bulk from ships while; ii) Malta is not yet party to the MARPOL regulations pertinent to pollution by garbage and sewage from ships (which would be relevant to the ships involved in the tuna penning project) therefore garbage and sewage pollution from the tuna penning activity would still need to be considered within other local regulations, not mentioned in the EIA statements?

The tuna penning EIA process has let down public trust by making the interested public believe that they would contribute toward the consultation phase when forwarding relevant comments or scientific expertise, when indeed these appear to have been given low to no consideration, as conveyed by the PA's EMU recommendation to the board for the penning project to be accepted.

If one should consider the PA's planning decisions in the past few years one may note a tendency for a "No" decision in cases of general public uproar against a proposed project and a "Yes" decision in cases of general public's lack of awareness or a project's alleged strong monetary rating. So why bother with EIAs? One seldom comes across any "No" decisions being issued for purely environmental reasons. Is it possible that to date proposed developments have had only impeding public impacts or financial promoting benefits? When will the economics of environmental damage really be considered in EIAs, especially when locally natural resources and undisturbed habitats are soon to become as rare as gold.

Indeed the Ta' Cenc tuna penning project was put off by the developers themselves immediately after having heard that the tuna penning project off Selmunette Islands was accepted by the PA board. Thus one has to note yet again that it was not due to any PA's decision or environmental consideration that this site is not being exploited for now.

Therefore while looking forward to improved EIA regulations one should highlight the need for an improved attitude toward the whole EIA process, by the entities responsible for it, which includes: 1) Improved procedure for maximising the information required and obtained by the EIA consultants for any of the developments, especially when the latter is a new type of activity not assessed before; 2) Real and full accessibility of the EIA reports especially by interested and specialised local entities; 3) Serious consideration by the directorate of the PA of all the inputs supplied by the public, ngos, specialised agencies and departments, especially when the latter manage to forward practical and real facts of the probable effects of the development on our natural and socio-economic heritage.

Defeating these essential requirements would be defeating the PA's own mission's statement and reason to be.
PA's Mission Statement
" provide a quality, people-oriented planning service, by equitably managing the Island's natural and man-made resources, Environment and development needs, to improve the quality of life of current and future generations."

BICREF is a non-profit, non-government organisation to allow volunteers to promote and assist local scientific conservation research and management. Its members are all active in the scientific conservation research projects they choose to participate in.
Contact address: BICREF at PO. BOX 30, Hamrun.