If I had been a small sparrow returning home to my shelter on the trees in front of St John's Co-Cathedral last Saturday, I would have been shocked to discover that an earthquake or a tsunami had taken place and destroyed my home... and trying to locate other shelters in Castille or in front of the Valletta market would have given me the same results. I and many others would now be homeless and left to our fate to die. We know people here do not care about us, but we wonder whether they also do not feel the pain these trees, shorn of all dignity, feel.

Indeed I would have realised that for quite some years now, there is a consistent strategy to cut down and disfigure urban trees in most localities in Malta. The reason? Somebody, very ignorant of the significance and reverence that are due to trees, is making very short-sighted profit by selling this wood for home fireplaces.

The strange thing about all this is that in spite of numerous protests, nobody takes any action, whether it is the ELC or the Department of Agriculture that is responsible. They just continue to get away with it and this butchering goes on and on until... when? Until the island has no more urban trees left?

Since time began the tree has been recognised as a symbol of life and regeneration and is a sacred link to organic life on earth, of which we, so-called humans, form part. Harming trees is harming our vital organic fabric. In Celtic folklore the cutting down of an elder tree brings misfortune... in Malta we have cut down our last elder tree decades ago. Are we all sound asleep?