Environment Minister Mario de Marco has announced plans for the creation of a Nature Agency tasked with managing Malta’s Natura 2000 sites.
The new agency will be independent of the Malta Environment and Planning Authority to ensure that the transparency and arm’s length relationship of the environmental regulator is maintained.
The agency would not detract from the work of those NGOs or other stakeholders already working in Natura 2000 sites that will continue to be responsible for such sites.
Malta has 34 Natura 2000 sites. The names of these sites alone evoke the bygone beauty of so much of the island’s countryside. Il-Magħluq tal-Baħar, Il-Qortin tal-Maġun u l-Qortin il-Kbir and Ras il-Pellegrin sa ix-Xaqqa join the better known Ta’ Ċenċ, Filfla, Pembroke Ranges, L-Għadira and others as areas where different species of plants and animals interact with each other and with their natural habitat to form unique eco-systems needing protection.
Natura 2000 sites account for almost 14 per cent of the country’s territory, compared to a European average of about 20 per cent. But when one considers that, over the last 35 years, agricultural land – the island’s only remaining unspoilt countryside – has been reduced by construction development from almost half of the land area to about one third today, it is immediately apparent that the areas designated for protection as Natura 2000 sites represent a significant proportion of our precious natural environment. In some cases, the species found in the Natura 2000 sites are not found anywhere else in the world, thus constituting a crucial part not only of Malta’s natural heritage but also the world’s.
These sites constitute a vital element in the safeguarding of Malta’s remaining natural heritage landscape. It can be seen, therefore, that the future efficient management, oversight protection and administration of the Natura 2000 sites are matters of paramount importance not only to this country but also to Europe and to global biodiversity.
Malta has rightly been praised for its progress in designating sites under the EU’s Habitats Directive, emerging as the most advanced State among those that acceded to the EU in 2004. This is a direct reflection of the notable work of detailed data collection, mapping and habitat identification carried out to date by Mepa’s Environment Directorate.
The next logical step in the process is to ensure the proper management of all these sites. Hence, the creation of the Nature Agency whose task will be to oversee the detailed management work, including monitoring and surveillance, of those organisations and other individual stakeholders (in some cases these may be the farmers who own and till the land) designated to protect such sites.
A national biodiversity strategy and action plan has been drawn up by Mepa’s Nature Protection Unit and this should, in due course, form the basis of the Nature Agency’s work.
But more than that, the agency’s head will also be responsible for alerting the regulator, Mepa, if any threat to the integrity of habitats or species present on Natura 2000 sites arises in any way, whether from proposed development, any disturbance of the habitats, pollution, natural disasters, or any of the depredations the impact of human activity on the countryside may bring.
The Nature Agency is an important step forward in the right direction. It is to be hoped that whichever government is in power in two months’ time will ensure its speedy implementation.