GozoNews.Com

Sardinia has taken a giant step towards saving its coastline for posterity when the island’s regional assembly approved a law banning construction on 1,760 km of land near the sea. The law is expected to kill off plans to build a huge tourist complex on the Costa Turchese on the east coast, near Olbia. The plan, which envisaged 500 hectares of villas and hotels, and moorings for 2,000 yachts, was rejected by successive island governments.

The Costa Turchese, home to a marine nature reserve, is to be rigorously protected from all construction. The measure to protect Sardinia’s coasts had first been imposed by decree two years ago, but this week a more carefully refined version was enacted as a law.

The island’s governor, Renato Soru, billionaire founder of the Internet service provider Tiscali, who has made the preservation of the island’s exquisite environment a personal crusade, was beaming. “The government and the majority have kept faith with a commitment made in our election campaign that for us is a fundamental point in our programme,” he said. “Now Sardinia is safe: there is a strip of coastline covering on average three kilometres from the sea where it is not possible to build anything. Sardinia’s territory will no longer be consumed.”

Despite protests from the island’s building industry, so far Mr Soru seems to have succeeded to retain public support for his dream of hanging on to the island’s natural beauty for the next 500 years.

The new law allows construction work already under way to be completed, and reconstruction to be undertaken in existing resort areas. The Californian tycoon Tom Barrack, who owns much of the Costa Smeralda, one of Sardinia’s marine jewels, will, for instance, be allowed to rebuild in areas that are already built up, and to replace the naval shipyard with a hotel, but not to expand beyond the resort’s existing limits.

A period of anarchy on the island will end when the new law comes in, when the striking down by a regional court of 13 out of 14 local development plans left a planning vacuum into which developers rushed to build new tourist facilities. Mr Soru commented: “All that has been saved from assault during the previous decades will remain intact.”The beauty of nature is a patrimony that can be exploited only if it is not violated. We were given the task of turning the page, and we have done so. The island’s Wild West period is over.”

Such decisive action here in Malta and Gozo is wishful thinking indeed! Imagine the political repercussions, locally, of such a move, with building contractors threatening to lay off thousands of people and holding government to ransom!

FAA acknowledges the help of Dr Mario Tabone Vassallo in reporting this item.