Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1494132
maltatoday | SUNDAY • 5 MARCH 2023 OPINION 10 OPINION It's not easy even pretending to be Green… IF, like me, you were brought up on Jim Henson's 'The Muppet Show', you will instantly recognise that headline as a ref- erence to its most famous protagonist, Kermit the Frog… who once sang (from purely personal experience) that: 'It's not easy being Green.' But even if the names Kermit the Frog, Miss Piggy, Fozzie Bear, The Great Gon- zo, etc., mean nothing to you, at all: there's still a good chance you'll be familiar with that song-title anyway. If nothing else, be- cause it has become a standard way of re- ferring to all the 'difficulties' traditionally faced by Green Parties – and environmen- talists, in general – in the context of local and international politics. [Note: Politico. com has used it as a headline at least a dozen times, in the past decade alone.] Now: I admit that the following thought only just struck me, literally as I was writ- ing the last sentence: but with hindsight, I realise that those same 'political conno- tations' – anachronistic though they may appear, when applied to a 1970s children's TV show – may have all along been IN- TENTIONAL. In other words: when Kermit The Frog sang so wistfully about all the difficulties he faced, as a direct consequence of his own skin-colour… he was not merely con- fronting the sheer absurdity of 'racism' (a connection that is already widely recog- nised; and certainly WAS intentional, on Jim Henson's part)… No: it could also be that Kermit really did mean those words, in the way they are so frequently re-interpreted today: i.e. that 'it's not easy being an environmentalist… at a time when (to paraphrase one less- er-known sketch from the Muppet Show itself) the rest of humanity seems hell- bent on destroying the entire planet'… And the more I think about it, the more plausible the interpretation appears. Af- ter all, Henson himself was known to be a committed environmentalist, through- out his career; and especially during the 1970s, when what we can now safely call a 'global environmentalist consciousness' – represented, at the time, by nascent or- ganisations such as 'GREEN-peace' – was only just beginning to awaken. So even if the word 'Green' itself had yet to assume its present-day environmental- ist implications – and there was no such thing as 'Green Politics', by that name – a connection clearly existed, even back then. Not just with the name 'Greenpeace', by the way; but also with its flagship, the 'Rainbow Warrior' (and what do you know? 'The Muppet Movie' actually opens with Kermit The Frog singing an- other song: this time called… 'The Rain- bow Connection'!) Honestly, though: this is one of those 'How-on-earth-could-I-never-have-spot- ted-something-so-utterly-OBVIOUS-be- fore?' moments… But, oh well: I guess I'll save it for a future PhD in 'Muppet Studies', or something. Because for now, it doesn't really matter whether Kermit the Frog (or Jim Henson, for that matter) actually meant it to be un- derstood like that, or not. What matters more is that: it's perfectly true, either way. Being 'Green' – in the political sense of the word – really IS kind of 'difficult', these days. So very difficult, in fact, that it seems the present government has given up on even pretending to have any 'Green' credentials, whatsoever… Take, for example, the last time the La- bour Government actually tried to slap the label 'Green' – in the environmental sense - on any of its policies. On January 16 of this year, to be precise: when Envi- ronment Minister Miriam Dalli launched 'Project Green': an agency aimed – in its own words - at "implementing and coor- dinating a number of environmental pro- jects in urban areas […] so that abandoned spaces in town centres are turned into gardens," etc., etc. Ten days later, the newly established Project Green launched a €10 million 'Community Greening Grant': "giving communities in Malta and Gozo an op- portunity to create and enrich existing green open spaces in their localities"; and through which "Local Councils, NGOs, schools, and other organisations will re- ceive financial assistance to create greener spaces in their community." Meanwhile, the agency's website informs applicants that: "the types of green spaces projects that Project Green might support include" [my emphasis, in all cases]: • the creation of new high-quality pub- lic green spaces, especially in HIGHLY URBANISED LOCATIONS and where this would help REDUCE HEALTH INE- QUALITIES; • better management of water and RE- DUCED FLOOD RISK through sustain- able drainage and natural flood manage- ment measures […]; • restoration and creation of WILDLIFE HABITATS; • Creation of open spaces which reflect THE DEMOGRAPHIC NEEDS OF THE SURROUNDING COMMUNITY (and many, many more). On her part, Dalli claimed that: "This is one of the biggest environmental schemes for environmental projects in the com- munity ever launched in our country. We are injecting a €10 million direct invest- ment in our communities to implement the green projects that they have always aspired for." And Parliamentary secretary Chris Bonett added: "The environment is our priority, and we are determined to utilise the new EU funds programme to invest in projects that improve our envi- ronment and create more green spaces for our families." All sounds terrific, doesn't it? Until you fast-forward just a few short weeks, to find that… OK: to be fair, you can't exactly complain about the failure of these 'Green Projects' to actually materialise, since then… for the simple reason that the closing date for applications was only last Tuesday (which means we won't realistically see any of these promised 'new green spaces', for at least another year). At the same time, however: I, for one, certainly did not expect the amount of 'green space' that is already available, in Maltese towns and villages, to actually DECREASE – and quite drastically, too – in the meantime: with more and more urban public land being rudely 'snatched away' from its rightful owners – i.e., the communities which used to enjoy them – to be literally handed over to a motley assortment of selected 'commercial inter- ests': all for their own, exclusive exploita- tion. Yet this, it seems, is the reality we are now confronted with, on an almost daily basis – and almost literally, everywhere you look – ever since those boastful claims about 'Greening Local Communi- ties' were made. In Mellieha's Tal-Qortin district, for instance: the Lands Department has on- ly just decided to sell one of the last re- maining undeveloped plots (measuring 5,000sq.m) in the entire neighbourhood… despite the fact that: a) it constitutes the only 'green open space' that actually exists, within the con- fines of what is already a 'densely-populat- ed urban environment', and; b) it turns out that the site is home to at least three endemic plants, and two indig- enous plant-species... all of which are sup- posedly 'protected', at law; and described