In the face of renewed legislative controversy that risks having a disastrous, and even permanent, impact on the environment, civil society has brought Malta's green reckoning back to the top of the agenda - whether the country's political forces are capable of handling it, or not.
The environment has been under the microscope for several years now. There is no doubt that it has deteriorated in the last few years.
The blame can be shared: many will say that it started to accelerate in 2006, when the Nationalist administration at the time re-jigged the country's local plans - but most will equally say that the Labour administration since 2013 has done very little to stop. Some will even argue that they have only supercharged it.
Malta's civil society scene has over the past decade risen into a veritable political force capable of actually bringing about change. A huge part of that is its recognition as champions for the environment and against rampant greed, construction, and bad planning: a recognition that neither political party is attributed with.
The government's deeply controversial planning reform has reawakened an environmental cause which had been present, but not necessarily at the forefront of discussion in recent months.
With organisations mobilising thousands into the streets to once again protest in favour of the environment last weekend, Malta's environmental reckoning is once again right on top of the agenda.
Malta's civil society movement has gained traction in recent years, as people flock towards them in their droves. NGOs such as Moviment Graffitti have been the catalysts in a new environmental reckoning for Malta: a reckoning that the limit has been reached and exceeded - that in a lot of places, enough is enough.
Graffitti, together with plenty of other organisations, have mounted campaign after campaign on environmental topics which has actually resulted in tangible change.
In Marsascala before the 2022 general election, for example, plans for a marina ended up being shelved. In Comino, the government was forced into taking action to reduce the number of visitors and change how the area is treated. In the case of Manoel Island, the government was forced into a u-turn that resulted in the cancellation of a huge development concession to turn the place into a national park.
These and other examples are evidence that civil society pressure does work, and it has empowered both members of civil society and members of the general public who hold the environment especially at heart to persist in their campaigns.
So it was no surprise when these usual set of NGOs pounced into action when the government quietly tabled a sweeping reform to Malta's planning system on one fine Friday summer afternoon earlier this year.
The 'developer's wishlist' that put the environment back on top of the agenda
NGOs themselves had been calling for a wholesale reform to Malta's planning regulations, with reforms such as a mandatory stop to works when an appeal against a project is filed among the main ideas being proposed - but the government's proposed reforms went far, far beyond that.
NGOs described that proposed reforms as a "developer's wishlist", as it gave the Planning Authority wide-reaching powers to do effectively as it pleased with important policies such as local plans and others.
The bills also planned to remove the power of the Courts to be able to revoke development permits - an avenue that NGOs have gone down in the past with a good degree of success. Courts will instead only be able to send a project back to the Environment Planning & Review Tribunal - a tribunal which the courts have consistently found to have breached already existing planning policies in certain decisions it has handed down.
Making matters worse was the fact that the government held virtually no consultation. Only the Malta Developers Association and the Chamber of Architects were consulted for the drafting of these regulations.
The government's initial intention was to table the Bills quietly on a Friday, and then immediately discuss them and - hopefully approve them - in Parliament as it dragged on into summer. But NGOs and the media noticed the Bill, and a veritable hornet's nest was kicked up.
In the end, the government relented and opened the Bills up for public consultation - already a win for civil society - and it is said that several changes are being made to it.
Yet activists still took to the streets, calling for the complete withdrawal of the Bills, pledging to keep up their campaign. Thousands of people took to Valletta yesterday week, making it clear that the planning bills had put the environment, once again, firmly on top of the agenda.
The country's political forces have always felt constrained to react to mounting public pressure on environmental topics.
Robert Abela had announced the cancellation of an idea for a marina in Marsascala on the campaign trail of the 2022 general election, while both the Labour government and the Nationalist opposition had a complete u-turn on their attitudes on Manoel Island as the public pressure continued to mount.
Perhaps in an aim to take advantage of this new green wave from the summer, the PN decided that it would use its first dedicated Parliamentary plenary session under new leader Alex Borg to put forward a motion to add the right to a healthy environment to Malta's constitution.
The Bill, which was discussed last Thursday week, was well-received by environmental NGOs but, perhaps unsurprisingly, was less well-received by the government.
The government lambasted the PN for not consulting all stakeholders, and said that the Bill would cause severe unintended consequences which could threaten several activities and pastimes. Several organisations, coincidentally following the government line of reasoning, also came out against the motion.
On towers and consultations: Political parties continue to commit missteps
Beyond the planning bills and constitutional bills though, there has been more to the topic of the environment in recent days.
The government, for instance, exhibited quite a degree of hypocrisy in its critique for the PN's constitutional bill.
Environment Minister Miriam Dalli said: "Any legal change cannot be done in the disorganised way that the PN is doing. When you have an amendment that is being tabled in such an irresponsible manner, without its impact having even been studied, that is a legal change which is not being done for the country as a whole and this government is not ready to go in that direction. We want to know what the impact is on the people as a whole for any legal change we do."
There's nothing wrong with that line of thinking at all. The impact of any legal change should be studied, and its impact on the people as a whole should be taken into consideration. So the obvious question which many have asked after the Parliamentary debate was simple: Why didn't the government do just that with the planning reform?
The government's planning reform included no public consultation. The government said that this was in order to avoid "land speculation". All well and good if the government hadn't consulted the body which represents the country's biggest land speculators - the Malta Developers Association - and the body which represents those whose jobs ultimately thrive off the building market - the Chamber of Architects.
It's an obvious misstep which civil society caught onto almost immediately.
This is not to say that the Nationalist Party has been perfect either on the environment in recent days. Some segments of civil society were already wary of Alex Borg over his perceived closeness to some construction developers and over how he handled the Fort Chambray saga when he was the PN's Gozo spokesperson.
Their perception won't have improved when last month Borg appeared to open the door to the possibility of having towers built in Gozo. "You can't generalise. You can't say Gozo in general. You have areas where there could be [high-rises], based on the skyline policy," Borg said in an interview.
Both civil society and the government jumped on the remark, and Borg issued a clarification a couple of days later saying that he did not want high-rises in Gozo, explaining that a proper skyline policy as he had proposed would stop this from happening.
It's an interpretation that not many bought, at least at first glance, and won't have done Borg any favours as he tries to win the green vote.
It's always proved difficult for the two political sides to toe the fine line between coming across as pro-environment but also not alienating the construction lobby, which remains a powerful stakeholder.
With the environment now back on top of the agenda, these missteps probably won't be the last.