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Karl Schembri
They might as well turn it into a zoo. Barely six months since it was rid of the pigs and their owner to be handed over to Heritage Malta, Fort Delimara has now been turned by the government into a duck compound as a preventive measure against avian flu.
The announcement was buried in a press release issued Thursday by the Department of Information, and according to the Heritage Malta head, Mario Tabone, “it sounds surreal”.
Indeed, Tabone had just started planning what to do with the fort, handed over to his heritage agency last year after being occupied for decades by a farmer who turned it into a pigsty with the blessing of Mintoff’s government.
But last week he was just informed that the fort built by the British between 1876 and 1888 will be used to house wild ducks currently roaming in bays to isolate them from any migrating birds who may be infected with avian flu, in the wake of the wild swans found infected in Sicily.
“To be honest, that was exactly my reaction upon being told of the decision,” Tabone said when asked whether he felt this was just what was needed to return the fort to its former glory. “I mean, after serving as a pigsty, now the birds. Sounds a bit funny, almost absurd.”
Funny may be one way of seeing it, but the heritage value of the site is no laughing matter.
The fort was one of a ring of forts and batteries protecting Marsaxlokk harbour, but it was abandoned after the departure of the British and then leased by Mintoff’s government to a Labour thug, ‘il-Qahbu’, who used it to raise pigs for 15 years.
Despite the damage by the pig breeder, the fort remains in relatively good condition, and still retains four of its 14 original 38-ton Victorian cannons.
It was only after long drawn out negotiations, and Lm25,000 to the former occupant, that Heritage Malta finally took hold of the fort in August last year.
Tabone had plans to restore the fort and its underground networks to open it to the public as a museum and tourist attraction as part of a fortifications heritage trail.
“Our forts are the only epic buildings we really have,” Tabone had told MaltaToday. “They are spectacular buildings with enormous potential for cultural tourism but they’re in a dismal state. Why? Because responsibility was spread over a multitude of departments and ministries. So our suggestion was to declare forts and fortifications national heritage under the remit of Heritage Malta.”
Now the Delimara fort will be hosting ducks instead of museum visitors. Tabone said he could not protest much against the decision.
“I was told there was no other place that was as isolated from residences and farms to keep these ducks,” he said. “I couldn’t do much when faced with this problem. It’s a serious issue of public health, which comes before anything else.”
It is also an issue about how much government is insensitive to heritage treasures, previously believed to be derided only by Mintoff’s governments.
Environment Minister George Pullicino announced last Monday that vet division officials were capturing wild ducks around Malta to test them and isolate them from migrating birds that may be infected with bird flu. However he did not divulge the place where the ducks would be kept, limiting himself to saying they will be as far away from people as possible, not because bird flu posed any threat to human health but to allay any further panic largely fuelled by widespread misconceptions.
Tabone says the ducks’ housing at Fort Delimara will only be “a temporary measure” but that is only relative to the permanence of avian flu on the planet.
“It is temporary until the bird flu crisis is over,” Tabone, a doctor by profession, said. “You know it would be quite acute if it had to fit our country, so let’s hope it’s over as soon as possible, then I’ll make sure we’ll get the ducks out of there.”
He says he was given reassurances that the ducks will be kept in a closed tent in the fort’s yard, and that there will be security staff 24 hours a day on site.
This was the second blow for Tabone’s fortifications trail plans, after title trouble for Fort Bingemma, another military heritage treasure left by the British and occupied by a mechanic who turned it into his private farmhouse and work place.
Last Sunday, MaltaToday revealed that the mechanic is likely to find ministerial backing so that he remains in the fort and keep using it as a garage even though it was expected to be transferred to Heritage Malta.
That would mean that the transfer would happen only on paper, given that the heritage agency cannot open a museum meant to attract tourists with a mechanic inside.
kschembri@mediatoday.com.mt
http://www.maltatoday.com.mt/2006/02/12/t4.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fort_Delimara |
