On August 13, 2021, IRMCo submitted an application to Malta’s Climate Action Awards Committee in the ‘Facilitator of Change’ category.

Although cash prize awards can only be given to recently completed projects, by submitting this application, IRMCo wishes to once again convey its sincere thanks and appreciation to all the residents of Malta’s Grand Harbour area, as well as the mayors and councillors of Birgu, Cospicua, Kalkara, Marsa, Paola and Senglea who joined in a series of ten local community workshops that were organized by IRMCo over the course of the EU funded ENI CBC Med Mare Nostrum project.

Collectively, these workshops led to the drawing up of a Charter which draws the attention to the importance of safeguarding the area’s Green and Blue Open Spaces.  Local residents, with the assistance of representative of historical and cultural heritage societies, were also invited to draw eco-heritage trails, i.e. pathways connecting the open spaces with sites of historical and cultural interest. All of the project’s outcomes, including the list of over 100 signatories to the Charter and maps depicting the open spaces through field surveys conducted by IRMCo, and more, remain fully accessible on www.grandharbourcharter.net.

Although these outcomes were achieved back in 2016, IRMCo’s use of Participatory GIS in this project was picked up the Malta Council for Science and Technology in 2021 and given prominence in the Plumtri Newsletter of February 2021.

The ‘project of the month February 2021 award’, by the Malta Council for Science and Technology Plumtri team, was then in turn picked up by Eurisy, a Paris based, non-profit association gathering space agencies, international organisations, research institutions, and private businesses, and dotSpace, a foundation based in the Netherlands which supports potential end-users of satellite applications by leveraging its network to make experience and expertise available.  IRMCo accepted the invitation from Eurisy to give a Space for Climate webinar talk in July 2021 on our use of Participatory GIS.

This brings to the fore that that the Mare Nostrum project outcomes received both national and international recognition in 2021, which is otherwise beyond our control, but spurred our commitment to share this recognition with all the participants who committed to the highly successful outcome of this project.

Being an integral part of the submission requirements for the Climate Action Awards for 2021, IRMCo also produced a 2-minute video clip about the project, which in reality brings a collection of snippets from the longer documentary that was produced during the project and screened three times on Malta’s National Television Channel TVM2.

The below photo montage, capturing the ‘essence’ of the Mare Nostrum project was also submitted.

To our knowledge, ‘the Safeguarding of the Green and Blue Open Spaces’ catapulted the very concept of Open Spaces to become mainstream terminology used not only by the mayors and residents of the six Local Councils who actively participated in the Mare Nostrum project but by citizens across the Maltese Islands. 

It is time for policy- and decision-makers to reflect how, not when, to put a stop to the gobbling up of the Islands’ green and blue open spaces for private investor gains. The citizens who joined us in Mare Nostrum can tell you why – they are emphatic in their wish to leave behind a place that guarantees ‘A Future For Their Children’!