The initiative taken by Gayle and Thomas Dimech to plant trees rather than give out one more gift to their wedding guests is a very welcome personal environmental initiative (November 1). If only others would do the same. We spend so much useless money in throw-away gifts and stationery. Their example, especially because it was a personal one and not some ministerial publicity stunt, was indeed a superb idea.

This country, as has been confirmed recently, has the lowest rate of land planted with trees in Europe.

While other countries, especially islands, have had similar situations, they have taken very strong action to remedy this. I do not wish to belittle initiatives that have been taken but certainly these are not enough to try and reduce the negative position of our islands in this regard.

There is so much more that can be done.