malta temples

The 4,000 year old Mnajdra temple, Malta	The Haqar Qim Temple, Malta

Victories for environmental campaigners are few and far between in Malta. The outlook had seemed to be getting worse when the Maltese government put forward plans to create two potentially hazardous and certainly polluting waste dump sites only 300 metres away from the world's largest free-standing Neolithic temples, Hagar Qim and Mnajdra, relics of a matriarchal society that existed some 4,000 years ago.

But in June the Prime Minister of Malta announced that the government has rejected its own plans. The proposal had been made in order to come into line with EU directives. The panic-induced decision raised the possibility that the limestone temples - which are particularly susceptible to corrosion by chemicals in the air – would be seriously damaging by the leaking of dangerous gases, as well as sulphur from the heavy diesel engines used by waste delivery trucks and bulldozers.

Find out more about moviment ghall-ambjent/friends of the earth malta