And that is to put it politely, as The Times is too circumspect to print the real word. Unfortunately this is no sensational attention-grabbing headline but a literal description of the state of our architectural heritage, some of which is sinking in chest-high rivers of animal effluent.

In other places prehistoric remains and bastions have been literally bulldozed with a nonchalance that takes one's breath away, mostly to make way for monstrous developments like the Excelsior Hotel which remains unfinished to this day. Other monuments like the landmark de Redin coastal towers were virtually obliterated by commercial developments that were literally allowed to wrap around them. The cultural wealth of a people sacrificed at the altar of the financial wealth of the few.

It is easy to blame this on a few government ministers of the past who were notoriously on the take, but even recently heritage remained short-changed. With a political system based on the need to secure a re-election every five years, heritage remained a relatively low priority compared to more vote- catching lobbies like hunting. It was also not just a question of lack of funds but of the distribution of available funds, for the money wasted on white elephants like Azzurra Air or over-grandiose projects like the Gozo ferry terminal would have gone a long way towards maintaining the fortifications.

Therefore, no matter how hard an individual Works Minister might try, he could not succeed in allocating a realistic budget towards the upkeep of our heritage without the support of his cabinet colleagues. That this did not happen is not surprising, given the words of a past Parliamentary Secretary for Tourism, the sector which has the biggest vested interest in heritage. When asked why permission for demolition of a scheduled property had been granted, his chilling reply was: "Developers have to earn a living".

Years ago, the little island of Rhodes realised the value of its 2 kilometres of bastion and started restoring them; today the bastion walkways teem with tourists. Can we say the same of our Cottonera lines, which go on and on for a breath-taking 7 km? Walking the ring from gate to gate would be a wonderful experience, but like so many other sites, they are ravaged by years of neglect with the glorious Baroque sculpture of the gates being erased as chunks of stone delaminate and fall off.

And what of Fort St. Elmo? Although it is not the original structure that held out against the Turks, standing on the ramparts of Fort St. Elmo one can almost feel what it must have been like for the Knights and Maltese to look towards the Ottoman army and know that they were facing almost certain death. British modifications to the fort speak to us of Malta's ongoing importance in the middle of the Mediterranean, but its present neglect reveals nothing but decades of short-sighted policies. The decay of this national monument cannot simply be attributed to lack of funds, as the finances saved from some over-ambitious project (Dar Malta comes to mind) would have gone a long way towards rehabilitating it.

Over the last few years Government has stepped up its efforts in the restoration field, with a division within the Ministry of Resources and Infrastructure (ex-Public Works) wholly dedicated to restoration. Several laudable projects have been undertaken, one of the main ones being the Pinto Wharf development, but is it a case of too little, too late?

Apart from the Ministry's one-off projects which include the restoration of many lovely chapels, the former Valletta Rehabilitation Project, now the Rehabilitation Projects Office, coordinates the on-going works centring on Valletta and Floriana, Mdina and Cottonera.

These are amongst the most ambitious projects being handled by Government to date, but unfortunately they are bedevilled by a number of factors which date back to colonial times, the foremost being the practice of leasing out space within the fortifications to private individuals. Sites of a world heritage calibre are desecrated by panel-beaters and sprayers, complete with rusting car parts dumped around.

Some of the finest of Cottonera's Gates cannot even be seen as they or their approach roads are closed off by trappers or have been leased out as farms. This nightmare scenario has to be seen to be believed - the bastions are literally sinking in solid and liquid manure which is piled chest-deep into the bastion ditch and sits there, a stinking river of effluent, its destructive acids being absorbed into the stonework. Besides the health hazard to local residents and three schools sitting right above this bastion, the cow and pig effluent is lethal to the stone-work and is hastening its deterioration. This is a scandal that would topple governments in any other country, but here we don't even bat an eyelid.

Unbelievable as it may seem, there are also parts of Valletta's bastion that are used for agriculture! The Piazza Bassa and the ditch behind St Michael's tenaille below Hastings Garden are used for small-scale farming, while rabbits and chickens are reared in corners of the bastions away from the public eye. One might be forgiven for thinking that we are preparing for another siege! Other parts of Valletta are ruined by boat-houses, illegal fighting-dog sheds and squatters while at St. Angelo a Labour Party club premises sub-let to pigeon fanciers is holding up a whole restoration project.

These leases are all held by the Lands Department which falls under the Ministry of the Interior. What strikes one is, however, the fact that when there was a lot of political pressure to launch the golf course project at Manikata, the farmers' leases were terminated almost overnight, while these cases drag on after all these years.

And what about the Housing Ministry, that bête noire of officially-sanctioned heritage vandalism? While everyone understands the pressure to provide social housing, the answer is definitely not to fill historic areas with buildings which are incongruous due to their style and size, ruining for ever a world heritage site like Birgu and violating every principle of village core management and landscape values.

Most of those interviewed for this article were unanimous that the lack of coordination between the different players in the heritage scene is a major hurdle. Instead of having an integrated and coordinated heritage plan in which the different Government bodies like Ministry of Resources, Ministry of Tourism, Lands Department, Ministry of Social Policy etc. can work in a coordinated way and NGOs contribute according to their strengths, the sector is fragmented. Decisions are being taken independently by different Ministers while NGOs plug their own specific holes.

This lack of coordination is further aggravated by ministerial responsibilities which still follow out-dated patterns. Thus, anything relating to building works is handled by the Ministry for Resources (formerly Public Works). However it is the Ministry of Tourism and Culture which benefits from the Restoration Unit's work, as the actual monuments fall under that Ministry.

The Ministry of Resources and Infrastructure is under constant pressure to deliver on major infrastructural projects, so it cannot always prioritise restoration. Equally, the techniques and standards used in civil projects do not always apply to restoration work; however that is not always appreciated. As the labour on these projects is provided by the Ministry workforce, they are at times called off to deal with emergencies that they arise elsewhere, while vandalism and illegal dumping consume resources which could be put to much better use in restoration.

Similarly, all restoration ground to a halt during the four-month run-up to CHOGM. Such situations result in interrupted projects which seem to drag on forever in the public eye, however the project managers will remain powerless to do anything about it until the whole system is overhauled. Things should improve in this regard, once EU Structural Funds permit the recruitment of more staff, however even a stone mason or plasterer needs special skills to work on restoration. As there have not been the resources to train enough qualified staff one wonders how we are going to cope with the volume of work that these projects will require, or whether some will be rushed through with shoddy workmanship in order to be able to boast about yet another major glamorous project completed in time for the next elections.

I feel it is fair to conclude that while the government is finally undertaking heritage protection projects at an unprecedented rate, the overall feeling is that of having lost a great deal due to the almost total lack of protection of our heritage by successive governments.

With EU structure Funds in the offing, this is an exciting time for operators in the heritage field. Maybe we might now realise the worth of what we have left and finally commit to saving it for posterity.

Astrid Vella