Moviment Graffitti said that it is today releasing a video showing how Government is ”enforcing illegitimate private interests in the Comino nature reserve.”

The activist group said that the incident, which took place on Sunday, the 14th of June, ”shows Malta Tourism Authority officials forcing a group of friends, who were lying on a rocky part of the public Blue Lagoon beach, to move away.”

Graffitti added that, ”though there were no sunbeds or umbrellas in the area where they were sitting, authority officials ordered them to leave and even threatened to call the police.”

Graffitti argued that ”while there are concessions for the placement of sunbeds and umbrellas in certain parts of the Blue Lagoon beach, these in no way grant sunbed operators a permanent right of occupation, let alone the authority to use public officials to remove beachgoers from a public beach.”

Moviment Graffitti is in no way calling for disciplinary action against the officials involved. We know that this is a systemic issue that goes beyond individual responsibility. The Comino nature reserve, and the Blue Lagoon in particular, have been taken over by a Government-sponsored web of commercial interests that prioritises mass tourism over the public’s right to enjoy this unique place and over environmental protection.

The group pointed out that ”besides the occupation of public space by sunbeds, the Blue Lagoon is crowded with kiosks and other businesses selling all kinds of goods, services and activities. Most damaging of all is the constant flow of large boats ferrying thousands of tourists to the area, many of whom are recruited from places such as St Paul’s Bay and Sliema.”

Last year, Moviment Graffitti said it visited the Blue Lagoon and released a video showing how the so-called cap of 12,000 persons per day ”was an absolute failure.’ As many as ten vessels could be berthed at the Blue Lagoon at any one time, and many of these vessels made multiple trips per day, bringing hundreds of tourists to this small, legally protected beach on each journey.”

Graffitti went on to say that ”it is telling that Government continues to refuse to publish the carrying capacity study on Comino, despite repeated requests and despite the Court recently ruling that Cabinet secrecy cannot be used as a blanket justification for undermining the public’s right to access this important information.”

It insisted that ”the stubborn refusal to publish a study that may reveal the harm being caused by the current commercially driven system to an important nature reserve once again shows that Government feels more loyal to big business than to the public interest.”

Graffitti warned that ”as long as this situation persists, the public will continue to be pushed out, and Comino will continue to be denied the protection it deserves so that a few fat cats can continue to enrich themselves.”

Moviment Graffitti concluded by calling for ”this situation to change immediately and stand ready to take further action against the theft of our public spaces and heritage by greedy interests.”

File photos

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