TILTING AT WINDMILLS (October 20, 2008)
I am spending much of my time in the battle against unsustainable golf development in Motovun, and my efforts are slowly coming to a head. The environmental impact study of the project is now open for public scrutiny, and the public discussion of the study is to take place in the municipal offices tomorrow afternoon. Several environmental activists of some renown in Croatia will join me for the event, and we hope that the media will cover it well. Following the discussion, I will carefully arrange all the comments that may have a legal bite, and then I will organize the members of the international association concerned with Motovun’s sustainable development, which I formed a year ago, to send these comments to the relevant authorities. Immediately after the public scrutiny, I will organize a big press conference in Zagreb and make sure that all the key environmental activists in Croatia are present. This will be a media splash, as well. With some luck, the foreign investor and local politicians pushing golf development to the west of the town will scale down their expectations, or perhaps even give up the misguided project altogether. But the probability that this will happen is so small, so minute, so infinitesimal, that I cannot but think of old Don Quixote every now and then. Yes, I am only tilting at windmills just like he did.