This is an urgent plea aimed at highlighting the damage wrought by valley-clearing operations.

Valley beds are being bulldozed flat, clearing away all native vegetation, thus destroying much rare and endangered flora. Of particular concern are the following localities:

Wied il-Qlejgħa (just beyond Chadwick Lakes) had, until two years ago, good populations of Alisma plantago aquatic, Carex otrubae and Oenanthe globulosa – all frequent until the 1960s, but now very localised and rare; Lythrum junceum and Scirpoides holoschoenus, now infrequent;

Wied Għajn Mula (adjacent to the highway crossing down from Mosta to Burmarrad);

Wied tal-Grazzja (adjacent to the Victoria/Marsalforn road, Gozo) used to be a haven for rare flora. Back in 1992, I had discovered populations of Cyperus fuscus (critically endangered, now legally protected), Persicaria lanigera (very rare) and extensive stands of Boloboschoenus maritimus (infrequent), in this valley;

Wied ta’ Żejta (Gozo) harboured populations of Agrostis stolonifera (rare) and Boloboschoenus maritimus.

Now all these valleys have suffered a similar fate. After the so-called tindif (cleaning), all that is left is bare gravel and sediment (naqal), and a very few barely surviving individual specimens of some of the aforementioned threatened species.

For the most part, these species will not regenerate once it rains. The soil that contained their seeds and rhizomes has, in many cases, been lifted and dumped away from the valley bed.

Also, the valley bed will be overrun by ubiquitous, fast-reproducing weedy species that take advantage of the disturbance and usurp native vegetation. And I am not mentioning the fauna.

Wild plants are not to be regarded as ħaxix ħażin (weeds). Valley bed watercourses that still support semi-natural vegetation are not to be regarded as neglected. They are one of our fastest-declining habitats and thus should be carefully protected, not levelled.

This maniacal drive to alter the countryside in order to make it fit our perception of ‘neat and tidy’ is proving to be very destructive of biodiversity.

Is it not absurd that while Gozo is being promoted as an Eco-Island, ecocide is being committed in its valleys, and that some of these operations were started in 2010 – the International Year of Biodiversity?

Apart from biodiversity, there is the issue of erosion: huge masses of bare ‘clean’ soil, loosened by the sweeping action of bulldozers, and with no roots to bind it or vegetation cover to buffer the impact of heavy rain, will be washed away by the first autumnal deluge.

Hence I appeal to Mepa and all the authorities concerned to intervene and immediately halt all this valley-clearing.

If permits have been issued for these operations, they should be withdrawn forthwith.