There are some issues that are regarded by many in private as common sense but rarely get a public airing. We all express serious concerns about the environment, but our daily actions betray a selfishness that makes no allowances whatsoever for creating a physical environment that will ensure the well being of our children and grand children. The wonderful speeches by our politicians delineating their grandiose ambitions regarding the environment are then followed by actions that do nothing to improve the air that we all breathe and which directly contradict those well intentioned words.

Our politicians seem to be either in a permanent state of discombobulation or are too absorbed with the need to obtain power at any cost; promises, which are essentially electoral bribes, are made and, when subsequently implemented, cause enormous damage to our environment. A population brainwashed into thinking that the best politicians are those who sink this country into the quagmire of unaffordable debt in order to fulfil their grotesque promises continues to ask for more, and consider unsustainable subsidies and privileges as droits acquis. No one who considers himself as compos mentis would ever conduct his personal finances in the abominable way the economy of this country has been run by our politicians. Even in these days of austerity when twenty five cents of every rupee that we earn are reserved specifically for the servicing of the national debt, the opposition parties are dangling the poisonous bait of restoration of universal subsidies as its main attraction for us to vote for them. The precariousness of our situation means that we no longer need any experts to tell us what is blatantly obvious: we are rapidly turning Paradise Island into a concrete jungle mottled with palaces for foreigners and defiled by the preponderance of smoke belching motor vehicles over any concern over the health, safety, and lives of our citizens.

Shortly after independence, we all talked about the preeminent issue of those distant days: population control. The future of Mauritius was deemed to be largely dependent on the need to control the growth in our population in order to provide a decent standard of living for everyone. The Mauritius Family Planning Association did an excellent job in the sixties and seventies to educate the population about people?s parental responsibility and the need to ensure that any growth in family size is sustainable on financial and social grounds. Unfortunately, those high standards have now given way to an almost non existent family planning service and our population has now reached over 1.2 million inhabitants. Our population density of 610 individuals per square kilometer puts us 11th equal in the league of countries with the highest population density; to give you an idea of the enormity of the problem, a country that is considered as grossly overpopulated like India has a population density half of Mauritius, at 336 whilst China?s is 137. These are vast countries whilst we will have somehow to provide accommodation and sustenance on a land mass of only 2,040 square kilometers.

A cursory look at a recent map of Mauritius shows how fast the areas of the country undisturbed by urban development, roads, shopping centres, etc are disappearing; since independence, whole chunks of Paradise Island have been broken up into small fragments, absorbed into a dense network of towns, cities and major roads. We live in a crowded island and we have to ask ourselves how many more people can we squeeze into cities that already seem to be choking under the weight of their population density - the buses packed, the streets clogged with long queues of motor vehicles slowly carrying their owners and their frustrations on journeys undertaken not too long ago on foot, by bike, or on public transport, and the seaside on a Sunday afternoon teeming with people who mostly consider our pristine beaches as a convenient dustbin for all their rubbish. The pressure on our resources?water, forests, land, soil fertility, clean air will soon become unsustainable as the number of household units follows its relentless upward march; already, our water situation is causing a great deal of resentment and protests follow any measures designed to control the use of that essential resource.

The census figures show that our population has been increasing at the rate of 150,000 every ten years. The government has made it the benchmark of its tourism policy that we will have 2 million visitors annually from 2015. How on earth are we going to ensure an adequate provision of water, electricity, and other indispensable utilities when we already face major problems catering for the needs of our existing population now? Consumer trends, such as the desire of every married young couple to move into their own homes instead of following the old tradition of staying in the family home, have squeezed the space and resources we share on our small island. When will we have responsible politicians who will actively pursue a policy of persuasion, a Stop at Two Children campaign for example, to bring people?s attention to the carbon footprint of having lots of children and the immorality of creating lives that their poor conditions cannot healthily sustain? Are they so scared of the sanctimonious idiots claiming such an affinity to God that they believe they speak on His behalf, and who will voice all sorts of spurious reasons against family planning whilst doing nothing to alleviate the misery and poverty of thousands of children already existing in dreadful conditions?

Population control is not the only way to protect our environment; there are many things that governments could do which will have an immediate and positive impact on this glorious land that we inhabit. Here are just three measures that are being implemented with great success in other countries but which I am afraid are unlikely to be adopted in Mauritius due to our ignorance of global conditions and our mantra of gouvernman bizin doner, irrespective of our economic situation:

1/ Low energy light bulbs may cost more than the old, incandescent bulbs but they last up to 12 times as long and use nearly 80% less electricity. Australia will ban conventional light bulbs from 2009, and in the UK supermarkets and energy supplies have agreed with the government that they will be completely phased out by 2012. The supermarket chain, Sainsbury?s recently gave away 1 million low energy bulbs to its customers who agreed to make an energy saving pledge, like drying clothes outside instead of using a tumble dryer or taking reusable bags for shopping instead of using disposable ones. Why can?t we adopt this policy in Mauritius?

2/ Plastic bags can take between 400 to 1000 years to break down, and contaminate the soil, waterways, and oceans; they enter the food chain when eaten by animals. Nearly 90% of floating marine litter is plastic, and our beaches, gardens, and countryside are littered with them. London is the latest of big cities to have voted for a complete ban on plastic bags, something which our ministers would know from the many useless missions they undertake. Rama Sithanen was brave enough to impose a levy on each plastic bag, but he should have gone much further. He should have woken Anil Baichoo up from his comatose state at the Ministry of Environment and asked him to come forward with legislation to ban the pestilential things completely. Some of the fortune used by the ?Empowerment/Enterprise? people for stupid missions could be used to encourage people to start cottage industries making woven cotton eco shopping bags or the traditional tant bazaar. But our politicians are scared of anyone shouting ?pa ras mo bouse manze!?, a slogan which plastic bag makers will no doubt adopt as their cri de guerre.

3/ Our politicians are the only people in the world who not only ignore the terrible damage done to our environment by motor vehicles, but actually bribe people to purchase them at duty free prices. No other country has a policy of such moral decrepitude that only shameless politicians will brag about its implementation with speeches of sickening orotundity. Years of meditation has so far provided Vishnu Lutchmeenaraidoo with only one idea: that of allowing so called ti planters the dubious privilege of poisoning our environment further with duty free 4x4s! Why stop there? Why not promise everyone a duty free car in order to gain the all important power that politicians hanker for in order to enrich themselves?

The desire of every married young couple to move into its own home instead of following the tradition of staying in the family home has squeezed the space.

Alistair Darling, the UK Chancellor of the Exchequer, will soon increase road tax on ?gas guzzlers? and impose a one-off purchase tax of Rs130, 000 on 4x4s and other polluting vehicles like the BMWs and Mercedes so enamoured by our politicians and their friends; rebates will apply only to the least polluting cars like the G-Wiz Electric, Smart cars, or Toyota Prius. Stavros Dimas, the EEC Environment Commissioner recently opted for a fuel efficient Prius instead of the traditional gas guzzler. In Mauritius, the one thing that all our governments have been unquestionably good at is keeping abreast with technological advances in the motor car industry so that they can then waste our money on buying the most polluting monstrosities imaginable.

Oil has now reached $100 a barrel, but this news item has gone completely over the heads of our so called leaders. Petrol is still being sold at an unsustainably low price, and the huge shortfall in revenue combined with a fiscally sound duty schedule for all motor vehicles would have easily provided decent accommodation for all our homeless. Just for comparison purposes: petrol is currently sold at Rs 65 a litre in an oil producing country like the U.K. whilst the political pygmies running or hoping to run Paradise Island believe that Rs 40 per litre is too high a price for a subsidy addicted population?

We are cursed with politicians who have no visionary zeal for the common good; their only vision is the one starring them at the back of a chauffeur driven limousine on the way to the airport for yet another useless mission. They have as much concern for the environment as they have for the well being of every citizen in this country, i.e. none.

If you dispute that last statement, ask yourself this simplequestion: Why is Anil Baichoo minister for the Environment? ?

<B>R.A.J.</B> Email: [email protected]