An action plan for Dwejra, Gozo, which was approved in 2005, included a larger bird sanctuary and protected core zone. Yet the area’s status has remained unchanged.
On World Environment Day, June 5, 2013, a group of international students were deeply disturbed by the sight of a raptor, supposedly protected, shot dead in the closed season in an area of such highly protected status.
Their guide recalls the moment:
“I had spent the previous two hours highlighting the importance of the area for breeding and migratory birds. They were dumbfounded to see this and meet with a hunter along the specially protected cliffs.
“I trust all the work which had been put in by the Life project for Dwejra heritage park has not just ended up in a few signs and a parking area. This site was on the list of proposed World heritage sites – it deserves better. It is unacceptable that hunting and trapping continues to be allowed in a top protected area whose management seems to have been abandoned and priority given only to the building of a new structure surrounded by irregularities.”
The last sentence refers to Dwejra’s EU-funded restaurant posing as an information centre.
The experience spurred a letter to the minister responsible for environment and copied also to the parliamentary secretary responsible for animal rights. A consortium engaged by the Malta Environment and Planning Authority to draw up Natura 2000 management plans was also queried over what could be done to activate the issuing of a legal notice for adjusting the existing bird sanctuary boundaries as approved so many years ago.
The consortium replied that the decision on extension of boundaries of existing designations rests with Mepa, although the matter seemed up for negotiation:
“In this particular case, since the suggestion was already made, we will have a detailed discussion on the matter with the authorities. As regards your suggestion for a legal notice, that is outside the remit of our contract and should be pursued with Mepa or the ministry.”
The bid for an extension to the existing bird sanctuary seems to be lost in a spin, chasing its own tail. It has been a huge disappointment for environmentalists that the proposed extension, which had been accepted by the previous administration, never saw the light of day.
Plans for extending the ridiculously narrow coastal strip with bird sanctuary status at Dwejra were not given the necessary legal backing. Those who were involved in the Dwejra project at the time recall that the enlargement of the ‘minuscule’ bird sanctuary had finally been agreed upon with some difficulty:
“Although much downscaled by the protests of nearby locality mayors and hunters who objected, it still included more land than the old bird sanctuary. The valleys had also been incorporated. As far as I recall and have confirmed with other past representatives on the Dwejra committee, the action plan had been approved and signed by minister and all had been agreed on the enlargement of the protected site.”
Ten years down the line, no legal notice has been issued to make the amended bird sanctuary boundary enforceable by law.
Last September another e-mail was sent to the environment consortium that drew up the management plans for Dwejra. Concern was expressed over a protected seabird that had not been mentioned in the Natura 2000 action plan for the area. The European storm petrel is known to be present in and around the Dwejra cliffs area in small numbers.
Worries over the area have increased since trapping and hunting in several parts of the protected creates environmental disturbance, including clearing of new trapping sites by fire, construction of new hunting hides and removal of the protected Everlasting plant, (Helichrysum melitense) and other endemics along the cliffs. This has been reported to Mepa and the police on numerous occasions.
Spurred on by feelings of being let down over the lack of conservation work at Dwejra despite plans being drawn up and consultation meetings held, further enquiries were made with Mepa about the fate of the original plans for the bird sanctuary extension.
The final insult came in the form of an e-mail reply this month when the Environment Protection Directorate sent this answer:
The unit’s latest favour is the expected legalisation of the use of live bird decoys
“The issue of the bird sanctuary was not directly addressed in the Natura 2000 management plan. However, we are referring your e-mail to the Wild Birds Regulation Unit for their follow-up, both in terms of the bird sanctuary issue and the concerns on hunting and trapping, which are both addressed by such office.”
The unit has become notorious for assigning itself more powers without consultation. According to Birdlife, since the WBRU’s inception in 2013 it has eased legislation in favour of hunters and trappers, decriminalised the use of bird callers, reopened a finch trapping season, allowed for increases in trapping licences, eased hunting and trapping licence examinations as well as rendered obsolete an afternoon curfew protecting birds of prey.
The unit’s latest favour to the hunting and trapping fraternity is the expected legalisation of the use of live bird decoys.
Rather than being protected as part of Gozo’s cultural heritage this abandoned farmhouse in Marsalforn is set to bite the dust, making room for an 87-room hotel.Another complaint was filed regarding a new hotel on Marsalforn. A planning application notice appeared on an abandoned ‘farmhouse’ standing alone on the main road with open land behind it.
With its typical wooden balcony and shutters, the building is a familiar landmark to visitors driving down from Victoria.
The simple stone structure softens our transition from the rural to a more built-up setting on entering Marsalforn. It makes for a gentler approach as one enters this busy seaside settlement. The idea that anyone would try to squeeze an 87-room hotel into this space seemed like a bad joke to some.
To others, including the developer, who doubles as his own architect, knocking down this quaint landmark and putting up a six-storey hotel would, in his view “improve the attractiveness of Marsalforn as a tourism destination”.
The developer is also of the opinion that the (much contested) height of the proposed hotel would “amplify it as a landmark that will greet you in and out of Marsalforn”.
Two NGOs put forward their submissions, which appeared in Appendix II of the environmental impact assessment exemption report. The hotel project was exempted from the need for an environmental planning statement because it was considered that environmental concerns were addressed in the project description statement drawn up by independent environmental consultants.
Din L-Art Ħelwa took issue with the proposed building height and the project spilling into an ODZ area in the form of a formalised garden.
Nature Trust asked whether the derelict farmhouse on the site had been inspected by the Cultural Heritage Committee while complaining that the project description statement “does not even refer to this building as a culture heritage property”.
Disagreeing with view that the proposal was not likely to have significant environmental effects, Nature Trust maintained that the development application would indeed have significant environmental effects “because it would be the onset to other similar development applications which if approved, would choke Marsalforn and transform it into another Sliema or Buġibba.”
We can now only hope this will not be the case.