Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/679878
maltatoday, SUNDAY, 15 MAY 2016 News 13 SOMETHING of a household name in more ways than one, Pe- ter Calamatta is a familiar face and familiar voice, and his expertise on and widespread cultivation of Maltese horticulture has conferred upon him something of a 'national treasure' status over the years. But as the recent publication of his coffee table tome, 'Maltese Plants in the Bible', proves, he's far from ready to retreat to the background. The attractive vol- ume –whose aesthetic attributes Calamatta credits to photographer Robert Camilleri and designer Ma- ria DeGabriele – does what it says on the tin: sifting through Biblical references to locate plants which are common to both the Holy Book and our islands. But the book's genesis is far from straightforward, and in fact owes its existence to something of a fluke… the possibly 'divine' prov- enance of which doesn't escape Calamatta's attention. "You have to believe in some- thing, otherwise you don't exist," Calamatta tells me with a smile as we begin what rapidly becomes an impassioned conversation. "The way it happened, I can't help but see it as a sign…" As it turns out, the book was a glimmer in Calamatta's eye ever since he was a young student. Soon after Malta gained independ- ence – but, regrettably, just on the cusp of a war in his host country – Calamatta scored a scholarship in Israel, in particular to study drip-water irrigation: a significant experience for the budding hor- ticulturalist that was coloured by being put to a gruelling Kibbutz schedule – "we worked form 5am to 5pm with just a half-hour break for lunch" – and the unavoidable atmosphere of impending war. "What I found amazing was how, no matter what kind of conversa- tion you were having at the Kib- butz… in the end it always turned to the war. It made me sad to think that these people would be living under the constant shadow of the war… as it happened, it all broke out soon after I returned to Malta, and the Six Day War started…" It was Calamatta's mentor in Is- rael – the decorated general Av- igdor Carmi – who turned his at- tention to the plants mentioned in the Bible. "He wasn't a believer himself, but even he acknowledged that Jesus Christ was an interest- ing personality, to say the least… and before I left he gave me a booklet listing all the various plants mentioned in the Bible." The plants amounted to 105 in number, and would have made rich pickings for a young horticultural- ist to explore. The trouble is that the booklet fell to the wayside and was mislaid. It was only recently – after Calamatta had moved house twice – that he found the fateful booklet once again, while he was sorting out his library to clear out some books. Teaming up with young archi- tect and landscape designer Janice Vella, Calamatta eventually nar- rowed down the relevant plants for the project to 40: that is, out of the total 105 plants, 40 either grow or used to be grown on our islands. Organised in the book by both their botanical attributes as well as their religious context – with pho- tographs, paintings and accompa- nying quotations from the Bible – Calamatta is adamant that the information in the book doesn't set out to "prove any dogmas" and is made up from a relaxed selection of various versions of the Bible. But the book is clearly a 'holistic' passion project for Calamatta, and not simply an academic exercise in matching Biblical references to botanical reality. And once again, it's his ex- perience in Israel that informs the entire project from start to finish. Reminding me that his primary focus while studying in Is- rael was the process of irrigating plants, Calamatta paints a vivid picture of how our use and approach towards various plants has changed since Biblical times. "The Jerusalem area used to be very arid, and people had to rely just on the el- ements. So you im- mediately identify the plants which are the most resistant to drought…" Among these are the pomegranate, which Calamatta cites as a popular example of potent botanical symbol- ism in religious art: with the pome- granate – tradi- tionally consid- ered to be a 'regal' fruit – in Botticel- li's Madonna of the Pomegranate signifying Christ's 'kingly' status. The tamarisk pro- vided shade, while the olive tree needs no introduction for its cul- tural and culinary impact on the island. Or doesn't it? "Nowadays, our usage for the olive has narrowed down to just two things: eating the olive and producing oil. But in the days of Christ the olive tree was used for practically everything, apart from what we already use it for. For its good, long-lasting wood; its leaves (for incense) and its oil, not just for using in food but also to light up wicks, and as an ointment to pre- serve dead bodies. Normally, when you have a bottle of olive oil in front of you, you don't really think about these things…" Talk about olive trees dovetails our conversation into the state of the Maltese natural landscape in general and people's attitudes towards it in particular. It's clear that Calamatta – a former advisor to the government who worked in the Afforestation programme before starting his own gardening business and setting up the Envi- ronment Landscaping Consortium – is no hardcore green environ- mentalist in his outlook, and takes a sufficiently pragmatic perspec- tive on the ratio of business vs en- vironment. But even he acknowledges that "when development is done for its own sake… that is, simply to gener- ate income, then a lot of bad things can follow – and our problem now is very real… we are simply run- ning out of land, and we must pre- serve the little we have left". As it was always the case, Calamatta states that education is key. Growing up in post-war Malta, he doesn't recall plants ever being mentioned in school. "And when I was hunting around for a scholarship and came across 'horticulture', I had to look the word up in the dictionary!" Since then, he's seen significant changes in attitude – some of which he finds no shame in taking credit for, not just thanks to his work in Af- forestation and Landscaping, but also as a broadcaster specialising in gardening. Appreciation comes from hav- ing a fully-fledged idea about something – moving from ab- stract into actual. In the case of Calamatta's project, he hopes this process comes through by dint of the book's varied field of interest – religion, history, society and an- thropology. But happily, the project will also have a 'real-life' dimension – bringing its quest for awareness full circle. Founder of the Millennium Chapel Fr Hilary Tagliaferro is one of the supporters of Calamatta's project, in more ways than one. The concluding chapter of the book details a dream: that of creat- ing a garden that houses all of the plants mentioned in the book at the Chapel itself. With designs by the Millennium Chapel's own ar- chitect, Richard England, already in hand, Calamatta is optimistic that the dream will become a real- ity, with work set to begin in ear- nest next October. treljic@mediatoday.com.mt Peter Calamatta: 'We need to preserve the little we have left' Veteran horticulturalist Peter Calamatta returns to the public eye with the attention-grabbing coffee table book Maltese Plants in the Bible, but TEODOR RELJIC discovers that its fluke of a genesis is as far from an engineered PR exercise as possible Peter Calamatta: "We need to preserve the little we have left"