Last Friday, as I drove along Triq Tumas Grech in Għarb, past the football/playing fields, I noticed, to my utter disgust, that, here too, the local council has been struck by the “butcher-or-kill-the-trees” disease that seems to be rife in both islands.

It is a disease that seems to be politically attached. This is because the instructions via the various ministries seem to be to chop, butcher, hack or transplant to a certain death some very old and established trees, never to be replaced.

I find it such a pity that some cowboy, and definitely not a tree surgeon, has been instructed to hack away at those beautiful conifers that line the whole street and give shade.

I hope this pathetic disease will not spread to other locations in Għarb. I don’t know who is carrying out this nasty piece of work on the council’s instructions and actually being paid for it but a real butcher would most probably have done a better job.

Where is the supervision? Where are the precautions to ensure that the trees do not ‘bleed’ to death? Will the council be selling firewood as winter draws near?

In the circumstances, I can only conclude that this massacre was carried out to serve somebody’s purpose. Shame on the council if that is indeed the case.

A few years ago, a number of healthy olive trees were cut down to make way for the embellishment and upgrading of the stretch of road leading to Għarb/San Lawrence from Victoria. When I asked what is to happen to those trees, the council promised me that they would be planted elsewhere. But to this day I still cannot find them!

I sincerely hope that, to compensate for this massacre, the council will plant hundreds of indigenous trees in and around Għarb.

I shall look forward to the day.