I have written a number of times about the destructive red palm weevil and its devastating damage to palm trees in Sta Luċija in the press, and personally to Parliamentary Secretary Jason Azzopardi.

Dr Azzopardi immediately passed on the information to the authorities concerned and action was taken within a few days.

Now I am writing again because I cannot bear to see at least two more palm trees in my hometown which are infested with red palm weevils and destined to be felled and burnt.

There is one palm tree — found among others in the vicinity of the Maltese girna (stone hut) in the tree grove dedicated to the late MP Karl Chircop — which has started to cast off fronds that have been eaten by the larvae of this beetle (see accompanying photos). The tree is surely ‘sick’ and destined to die, while the red palm weevils are in their final stage before taking to fly to mate and multiply.

Last year, another palm tree next to this one, also infested with red palm weevils, was cut down and destroyed.

In the meantime, another palm tree which used to embellish the parking area next to the Nationalist Party club in Sta Luċija, shows that it is about to lose all its fronds — a sign that they have already been eaten or destroyed at their base by larvae building their cocoons which metamorphose into full grown red palm weevils ready to fly and mate, steadily destroying our palm tree population.

Immediate action — total destruction: cutting down the whole tree, carefully carrying the lot of fronds, trunk, and cocoons, sealed in plastic sheets, for burning — may save Sta Luċija and the rest of Malta and Gozo, from an infestation of red palm weevils.

Action by the authorities concerned is urgently needed.