The European Commission will allocate €1 million for an environment project identifying special marine areas in Malta’s exclusive fishing zone to protect the bottlenose dolphin and the loggerhead turtle.
The funding is half that required for a project the Malta Environment and Planning Authority will carry out in partnership with KAI Marine Serivce (Spain).
Although both these species are protected by EU legislation, as well as numerous other multilateral agreements to which Malta is a party, conservation policies and measures only become effective when quality data is made available.
At present, there is a lack of comprehensive information regarding these species and the type of habitat around the Maltese waters that are essential for their survival.
The project will collect important marine data which should close knowledge gaps for more information about the conservation status of these two species and any important areas for the continuation of their life cycle.
The project should also lead to the identification of potential feeding areas or important migratory routes for these species, if these are found to be present in Malta, following which these important sites will become protected.
For this project, MEPA has teamed up with KAI Marine Services (Spain), a marine conservation firm which will be contributing financially towards the project and sharing its extensive expertise to help identify the crucial areas for these species.
These areas will eventually be accompanied by a management plan, which will include certain restrictions to maritime activities, including fishing.
These areas will be designated within Malta’s 25 nautical mile fishing zone.
This project, which will span over 3 years, is also being co-financed by the Ministry for the Environment and Bank of Valletta.
The EU’s funding for the project comes as part of this year’s allocation under the EU’s environment fund, knows as LIFE+ Nature. LIFE+ is the European financial instrument for the environment and has a total budget of €2.1 billion for the budgetary period 2007-2013.
Malta has already benefited from other funds under this programme, over and above the €855 million EU funding allocated to Malta for the same period.
Last year, four Maltese environmental projects managed to tap these funds to the tune of €2 million, which included a project for the deployment of electric vehicles and another aimed at raising awareness on issues related to water scarcity.
This year, the Commission disbursed €268 million of EU funds for 202 projects in the EU’s member states.
Once again, demand was much higher than supply.
A total of 1,078 applications from the 27 member states were received for the three strands of the programme, which cover nature and biodiversity, environment policy and governance and information and communication.