€3.4 million secured for management planning of Natura 2000 sites

Mepa has secured €3.4 million for management planning for Malta’s 34 Natura 2000 sites in the Maltese islands.

The funds, from the European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development, will also be used to increase awareness of Natura 2000.

The management plans and legal provisions that will be established through the project will seek to conserve and protect habitats and species inhabiting the sites by identifying adequate management measures with intensive stakeholder involvement.

The three-year project will also ensure that Mlata fulfils its EU obligations under the EU Habitats and Birds Directive.

Mepa chairman Austin Walker this afternoon described the project as “a milestone in the protection of our rural environment”.

He told a news conference that, in the past, the authority had worked intensively to identify and get all the designated sites approved by the European Commission.

The sites were now being protected through the management plans, which will be supported by an awareness campaign on the sites.

The campaign would equip all stakeholders with the knowledge and skills necessary to participate in the management planning process more effectively.

Mr Walker said that the plans were not intended to suppress recreational or economic activities within the sites but to promote and emphasise the need for the sustainable use of natural and rural resources with the full involvement of all stakeholders.

Mario de Marco, parliamentary secretary responsible for Mepa, said that it was the first time that any EU member state would ensure management planning coverage for all land based Natura 2000 sites through a single initiative.

The project, he said, would produce management plans and involve stakeholders, but all areas had to be managed.

Through the Mepa reform, legislation which did not permit land owners to try to regularise illegal development carried out in an outside development zone or in a protected area after May 2008 was put in place.

Fines and penalties were also to be introduced against illegal development.

“Taken though, in isolation from one another, neither the legislation, nor the management plans, nor interim management measures or even enforcement will, on their own, succeed in reversing the loss of biodiversity.

“Like pieces in a puzzle, the measures must fit tightly together and dovetail with one another.

It is the intention of the government to ensure this happens,” he said.

A total 27 of Malta’s 34 terrestrial Natura 2000 sites are Special Areas of Conservation designated under the Habitats Directive and provide increased protection and management for rare and vulnerable animals, plants and habitats.

Seven sites are Special Protected Areas, designated under the Birds Directive to help protect and manage areas which are important for rare and vulnerable birds because they use them for breeding, feeding, wintering or migration.

Six sites are both SACs and SPAs.

The project will be delivered through a service contract.

The Natura 2000 network is spread across Europe and covers some 20 per cent of European territory.

In Malta, over 13 per cent of the land area is designated as part of the network.