400-year-old Kalkara carob trees chopped down

Two massive carob trees in Kalkara Valley, said to be about 400 years old, have been chopped down, raising the ire and concern of residents in the area.

The trees' long life was abruptly terminated when they were felled by developers over the last few days.

Such trees are protected by law, especially if they are old, unless a permit is issued allowing them to be uprooted - which was the case with these long-standing carobs, Kalkara mayor Michael Cohen said yesterday.

Legal Notice 12 of 2001 establishes a fine, ranging from Lm200 to Lm10,000, for the felling of every tree that is more than 10 years old.

But the Kalkara Valley carob trees have been cut with the "blessing" of the Malta Environment and Planning Authority, the mayor lamented.

He said Kalkara council had not been informed about the chopping of the trees and, when it found out, it immediately contacted MEPA, which said the contractors in question had the required permits.

But Mr Cohen maintained that the developers should have consulted with the council on the issue and, at least, agreed how and where to replace the trees.

"When it is not possible to replant the trees that have been uprooted, the developers have to donate other trees to the locality," the mayor explained. In the case of the 400-year-old carobs, they were simply too big to be replanted.

Mr Cohen said MEPA has told the developer to meet the local council to establish exactly what was being done. The meeting has been scheduled for tomorrow, he said, adding that it should have been held before any works started and that the local council expected to have been informed.

The mayor said other trees on the site would just be trimmed, according to MEPA, but he envisaged that more carobs would suffer the same fate once the development in the valley got under way.

Clearing the area and removing the trees would give rise to other issues, including flooding due to the lack of water culverts, he said.

"In its replanning exercise, MEPA had included the need for water culverts, but the question was who was going to install them...

"What we anticipated would happen - that works would be carried out without taking precautions - is happening," the mayor said.

"The trees are now gone and we will see what MEPA's environment section has to say about that. We intend to ask.

"What is for sure is that we are going to push for the precautions to be taken before construction works start and we plan to engage an architect to evaluate the position of the surrounding buildings to monitor the damage caused by the works."

The Kalkara Valley development has long been a contentious issue. The Save the Kalkara Valley front had kicked up a strong campaign to stop the building works in the valley. But the government had argued that the area in question was sandwiched between tracts of built-up areas and that no buildings were being erected in the valley, which had been protected by striking out the 10 tumoli of land from the building scheme.