By 2020, 30 per cent of Malta’s threatened species should reach a “favourable or improved state”, according to the targets of a government strategy to protect the island’s unique biodiversity.
The status of two-thirds of that biodiversity may not be bad, according to the Environment Protection Directorate within the planning authority, but it was also being threatened by climate change, development and overexploitation.
Among the threatened endemic plants are the Maltese Pyramidal and Spider Orchids, the directorate said.
Other targets include achieving a favourable or improved state for 20 per cent of the island’s habitats, such as phrygana in Mellieħa, a kind of garigue which is unique because the species in it are also exclusive to Malta.
Wall lizards, and particularly the endangered type on St Paul’s Islands, are also on the agenda of the first National Biodiversity Strategy and Action Plan 2012-2020, launched yesterday for public consultation.
The target is to “maintain” these reptiles through monitoring and controlling the rats that eat them, but the problem is the predators can swim across from the mainland, said Darren Stevens, manager of the directorate’s Ecosystems Unit.
Malta’s endemic wall lizards are becoming more common in urban areas, moving out of rural environments, Mr Stevens added.
The voluminous document, the work of the directorate, lists 19 targets for the next eight years, with 18 measures to achieve them. It is based on a country study, concluded in 2010, building on its results and identifying the gaps.
The strategy aims to tackle any loss of biodiversity, the direct pressures on it, such as invasive species and pollution, as well as its improvement, in particular through the management of sites.
Raising awareness is another important target in view of the fact that just 14.4 per cent of the population are familiar with the term biodiversity, and of these, only 18 per cent know what it meant.
The mindset should be to protect, said Environment Minister Mario de Marco at the launch of the draft. Dr de Marco said the strategy was approved by the various ministries to guarantee a sense of ownership and its integration into their policies.
But it also needed to be owned by the public and other stakeholders, who had an impact on the island’s biodiversity too.
Dr de Marco was speaking at Ħagar Qim, a Unesco World Heritage Site and an example of a combination of cultural heritage and natural environment, surrounded as it is by a marine protected area and Filfa, a Natura 2000 site.
Malta has the richest biodiversity in the Mediterranean and 13 per cent of its territory is protected due to that, he said, stressing on the important of site management.
Malta will be one of the first EU countries to have management plans for each land-based Natura 2000 site by 2014, he said.
Some targets may look ambitious, Dr de Marco said, but the time frames established were important for government accountability and transparency.