Protected sites facing 'tough challenges'

Malta, Cyprus and Poland - have so far failed to designate all their Important Bird Areas (IBAs) as Special Protection Areas under the EU's Birds Directive. Protected sites still face tough challenges from harmful developments, BirdLife Malta said, quoting the European Commission.

This emerged during the launch of key bird sites inventories at the Commission in Brussels recently. BirdLife Malta was one of seven BirdLife International Partner organisations taking part in this launch. The others were from Cyprus, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland and Slovakia.

Altogether, 430 internationally important sites for biodiversity, known as Important Bird Areas (IBAs), were identified in the seven countries. They cover 15 per cent of their land surface.

The IBAs identified cover a diverse range of habitats such as lowland and mountain forests, wetlands, meadows and bogs - landscapes that are rapidly disappearing from the rest of Europe. These sites host the majority of the EU population of globally threatened bird species such as aquatic warblers, great snipes and spotted eagles, as well as healthy populations of other more widespread species such as white and black storks, common cranes and several woodpeckers and owls. "There are clear signs that EU funds have opened up the floodgates to rapid and unsustainable economic development in the new member states. The sites listed by BirdLife in the new publications will need all the protection they can get," Zoltan Waliczky, European advocacy manager at the RSPB (BirdLife in the UK), said.

Eleven sites have been identified in Malta as important sites for birds according to EU criteria. The sites include: Ta' Cenc, Comino, Rdum tal-Madonna, Buskett/Wied il-Luq and Filfla.

Most of the sites are important for seabird colonies of Cory's Shearwaters, Yelkouan Shearwaters and Storm Petrels.

In addition, Comino and Buskett are important migration sites for birds of prey and other migrants. The other sites identified in the inventory include several cliffs in the south-western parts of Malta and Gozo.

BirdLife Malta will be launching the Maltese IBA inventory on Monday at the National Museum of Natural History, Vilhena Palace, Mdina.

Those interested in attending the launch may contact BirdLife Malta on 2134 7646 in the morning or via e-mail at info@birdlifemalta.orgwww.birdlifemalta.org.