The Ramblers Association is very disappointed to learn that money collected as fines from the controversial mass sanctioning of boathouses is contributing to further environmental plunder of the landscape at Dwejra, Gozo, this time in form of a Cafeteria.

A position of tolerance toward the sanctionings was reluctantly taken by the Association earlier this year when benefits to the environment of the Dwejra Park plan in its entirety appeared to outweigh the disadvantage of accepting the illegal structures. RAM also considered that delicate negotiations to proceed were arrived at with great difficulty before agreement could be secured while further delays could have meant the park would be ditched for lack of EU funding.

Ramblers Association now wishes to make it clear that it has revoked this earlier position and hereby declares itself against all sanctionings of illegal constructions outside the development zone. The Association calls for their immediate removal by direct action as prescribed on paper by MEPA. A promise made at ministerial level to stop sanctionings in ODZ will not be forgotten. RAM realises that compromises of this sort are clearly not to be trusted.

Alex Vella, Secretary of the Ramblers Association is adamant that irregularities should never be considered for sanctioning as thereby more irregularities are provoked. Here lies a typical example. RAM cannot be expected to swallow these irregularities whole? The insult of the offending concrete cafeteria being constructed on the ridge adds to the injury that this heritage site has been made to suffer by the permission of illegal structures, under guise of boathouses. Accordingly RAM reverses its stand on the sanctionings of the unsightly hovels at Dwejra and calls for them to be demolished. Obviously the embryonic concrete monstrosity on the ridge, conceived from these open abuses and in variance with the park plans, must also be aborted right away and the offending concrete removed from site.”

Dwejra has been proposed as a candidate for UNESCO World Heritage Site and is already part of the Natura 2000 network of European natural heritage. But in truth the decrepit shacks and the concrete structure make mockery of a nature site. Such an area of exceptional natural beauty and aesthetic importance deserves judicious treatment

Alex Vella
Secretary Ramblers Association of Malta
www.ramblersmalta.jointcomms.com...
www.ramblersassociation.blogspot.com...