Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1174220
9 maltatoday | SUNDAY • 6 OCTOBER 2019 FILM ENVIRONMENT No-one knows what Salina looked like originally. People have far too long meddled with it (it was even a Roman port once!) but the place silted up from centuries of soil accumulation car- ried down the valleys by rainwater. The marshland was drained and turned into fields, and the estuary converted into saltpans in the 16th century; in recent decades the Qawra conurbation smothered the rest of the surrounding area. And yet the place still harbours rare habitats – a brackish canal and patches of saltmarsh and reedbed – which are home to an interesting flora and fauna, including species found only here. Plus the saltpans themselves are a magnet to tired waterbirds on migration. But the site needed some long-overdue tender loving care, which it is now getting since coming under BirdLife management. Care- ful habitat restoration will stimulate Salina's biodiversity to flourish again. Go visit, it's free. Text Victor Falzon • Photo Desirée Falzon 680. SALINA NATURE RESERVE Visit Friends of the Earth's website for more information about our work, as well as for information about how to join us. You can also support us by sending us a donation - www.foemalta.org/donate GREEN IDEA OF THE WEEK 577: Find out more and try our delicious recipe: www.foemalta.org/goodfood THE story is about an art critic. But it is also about a woman. The main differ- ence between the two being that she was not quite moved by words, even though she was deeply attracted to faces and by what we usually call 'luxury'. On the other hand, the art critic too, as his pro- fession implies, had an inter- est in faces, but were you to look him straight in the face, you would perceive a certain emptiness ... indeed as if he were faceless. Because of this, the woman appeared vain. He seemed to be cut from a different cloth. This was perhaps the root cause of all the events in this novel that seems more akin to the realm of imagination and fancy than to real con- sciousness – what we usually call 'author'. And so the story goes on – a story within a sto- ry within a story – narrating itself through the characters in this ethereal landscape in an unreachable bottom-less pit – in the immensity of personal unconsciousness as much as in the hallucination in which we swim, allowing us to surface from time to time and think we have found ourselves, until all of a sudden we find ourselves wallowing down again in the pitch dark- ness's of our pits – the per- petual searchers of or face/s – alone or with others – in our connectivity and disconnec- tivity, as we live our solitudes that shout from within us. Il-Wicc L-Iehor Books A novel by Gorg Peresso THE Parliamentary Secretary for Reforms, Cit- izenship and Simplification of Administrative Process in collaboration with the British High Commission in Malta has organised a photo- graphic exhibition at the Auberge de Castille as part of Notte Bianca celebrations this year. Thousands of guests saw this exhibition when they visited the Office of the Prime Minister on Saturday evening. With the theme For Sale: the Faces of Human Trafficking, the exhibition presented a number of photographs related to human trafficking and the experiences of victims exploited for sex and domestic servitude. The exhibition took place in joint-collabora- tion with The Malta Independent and Malta- Today with the participation of photographers Alenka Falzon and James Bianchi from the re- spective media houses. Alongside this exhibition, a choreography was also launched with the participation of dancers from Zfin Malta under the artistic direction of Paolo Mangiola. The choreography reflected the realities experienced by victims of human trafficking. While visiting the activities, Parliamentary Secretary Julia Farrugia Portelli mentioned the contrast between the artistic expression and the experience of those people who go through some kind of exploitation. 'Art is the freest and most colourful form of expression. Today, we are using this tool to em- phasize how human trafficking is the complete opposite of that. This crime is a dark stain that chokes the freedom and happiness of whoever goes through these experiences,' she said. The initiative is part of the official activities of the Human, Like You campaign that was launched earlier this year. The aim of the cam- paign is to raise awareness among the public on the international scourge of human trafficking. The parliamentary secretary for reforms is al- so spearheading the process of consultation in relation to human trafficking and prostitution. This public consultation will remain open until 31 October 2019. For Sale: the Faces of Human Trafficking 'Sex Sells' by James Bianchi (MediaToday)