Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1546553
10 maltatoday | SUNDAY • 13 SEPTEMBER 2026 OPINION Malta: A country Andrew Azzopardi University of Malta professor who lectures at the Faculty for Social Wellbeing THERE is a useful concept in environmental politics called the 'sacrifice zone'. It is a concept that has evolved over the years. It essentially describes places that are effectively assigned to take the hit of economic growth so the rest can reap the benefits. Malta and Gozo are no excep- tion. Perhaps in the past, places such as Buġibba and Qawra, Sliema, St Julian's, Paceville, Marsaskala in Malta and Mar- salforn and Xlendi in Gozo were made to carry much of this burden. These were plac- es where density, traffic, con- struction, tourism and com- mercialisation were allowed to build up because, somehow, they were thought to be able to absorb "a little more". Sacrifice zones are created by determining that the destruc- tion of a community, a land- scape, a coastline, a village, a historic building, or an ecosys- tem, is presented as unfortu- nate but necessary—the price that must be paid for invest- ment, jobs, tourism, property values and progress. A case in point is the prime minister's comment as re- ported by MaltaToday on 8 June, when asked about tour- ism numbers: 'Prime Minister Robert Abela has pushed back against suggestions that the government's stated goal of quality tourism is at odds with rising visitor numbers, saying both elements are necessary.' And as always happens in Malta, we overheat with our craving to get richer and quick- er. As a consequence, the dan- ger is that now we are starting to rationalise not only land but our own thinking and that is when it starts getting messy. We have turned Malta into a series of geographical and social sacrifice zones. From Fort Chambray to Manoel Is- land and Comino, and so many other places, where the funda- mental question is not simply whether development should happen but what we are pre- pared to sacrifice for it. What happens when a histor- ic fort, an island, a coastline, an open space is asked again and again to absorb another pro- ject, another commercial use, another intervention? When does this surrender come? And, more importantly, who gets to decide what is sacrificed? This is the heart of the issue at hand. Economic development in itself is not bad. Investment creates employment, generates wealth and can improve peo- ple's lives. But you can't detach economic activity from a moral argument. The question is al- ways: What are the costs, who pays them, and who profits? Development often serves the landowner, who makes mil- lions. The developer makes his money. The government collects taxes. Politicians can point to investment, jobs and economic activity. But someone else always pays the price: The family paying an increasingly unaffordable rent; the young person shut out of the property market; the senior citizen whose neighbourhood has grown noisier, busier and less recognisable; the worker living in overcrowded accom- modation; the person work- ing two or three jobs but still struggling to make ends meet; the small business fighting for survival. The price is paid by the child growing up with less open space and less places to play, or the person who has nowhere quiet to sit, nowhere affordable to meet others and increasing- ly feels like a stranger in their own town and village. This is why poverty, loneli- ness and exclusion must be- come part of our conversation about development. We have become very good at meas- uring economic growth. We count GDP, development per- mits, tourism arrivals, property deals, employment and invest- ment. But we are much less comfortable measuring what is lost. What happens when econom- ic growth leads to a society of more buildings, but less be- BACK ON TVM FROM OCTOBER MA' SAVIOUR BALZAN FROM THURSDAY 1 OCTOBER 2026 AT 10.15PM ON TVM We have turned Malta into a series of geographical and social sacrifice zones