Dr Daniel Micallef was born in Rabat, Malta on the 8th June 1928. He completed his education at St Aloysius College and graduated as a Bachelor of Pharmacy in 1952 and a Medical Doctor in 1955. He worked as a General Practitioner until he retired in 2015. Medicine was his profession, but education and the holistic environment were always his passion. Politics and official office were vehicles through which he brought subjects he strongly believed in, onto both the national and international agenda.

On a personal level, he had tremendous foresight, was an avid reader, loved his garden, and never stopped being an idealist who was always thinking of how to improve things for all the Maltese generations to come.

Dr Micallef was first elected to Parliament in 1962 as a candidate for the Malta Workers Party at the age of 33. In 1963 he formed part of the Malta Delegation to London for discussions on the Malta Government’s request for Independence. In 1965 he resigned from the Malta Workers Party and his Parliamentary seat only to return in 1971 as an elected member of the Malta Labour Party. As a member of Parliament in the 1970s, he spent many years representing Malta on the Council of Europe. Then, in 1982 he became Speaker for the House of Representatives and actively participated in the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association.

In July 1986 he was appointed Minister for Education and the Environment. It was due to his strong conviction and persistence that the Environment, was finally recognised and became part of a Ministry for the first time in Malta’s history. Shortly after becoming a Minister, he set up the Institute for the Design of Environmental Action (IDEA). Through this Institute he sowed a seed in the Maltese awareness that the environment needed to be seriously and urgently approached and tackled in a holistic manner and not independent of the rest.

He frequently used the term “holistic” to communicate the idea of the all-encompassing and comprehensive nature of the environment and underline its influence on so many aspects of life. This passion and burning desire to promote and ensure the well-being of the environment has been a life long journey. He never tired of speaking about the holistic environment and never missed an opportunity to promote its significance and paramount importance for the wellbeing of the whole nation.

After spending two years as Ambassador to the Vatican and a 6-week stint in Albania as a medical volunteer, Dr Micallef gradually started entering retirement. After a lifetime dedicated to other people, he lived in the same house he designed and built with his wife surrounded by a garden full of trees and bushes which he planted himself.