World Environment Day, 2010.
Dear Members
On Saturday 5th June, 2010, a volunteer group of 16 members of the Ghaqda Tar-Residenti ta’ Santa Marija Estate , Mellieha, a local NGO, removed debris and discarded domestic rubbish from the protected and recently Scheduled valley known as Wied Ghajn Zejtuna, which runs through the Santa Marija Estate.
Appreciation.
This clean-up exercise, which was supported and approved of by both the Environment Protection Directorate, MEPA, and Mr. Albert Mizzi of Cenmed Ltd., yielded enough material, comprised of domestic waste, building rubble ceramic and cement tiles, paint cans, bottles, old bathroom fittings, motor oil, a TV set and sundry other items, to fill 2 large Skips and 2 Trucks.
This facility was provided by the Mellieha Local Council and the debris disposed of at a local civic amenity site along with a quantity of “dead wood”, mainly dry palm fronds, which presented a fire hazard. Some hazards still remain.
Other areas of the watercourse were cleared and some natural debris left in appropriate areas to decay naturally into the ecosystem.
The entire operation was carried out using only hand tools and was restricted to that of cleaning and clearing only.
Summary.
Despite what equates to a total of some fifty-six to sixty-four ‘man hours’ of work having been carried out on this one occasion, a greater amount of such “cleaning and clearing” work still remains to be undertaken before the true nature of the hidden problems become apparent and all fire hazards are removed.
Whilst appreciating and abiding by the value and purpose of the range of Legal Notices and Policies devised to protect the environment and its varying species, it is necessary to be able to first ’find’ the floor of the valley and allow air and sunlight to nurture the valley before many of these strictures can reasonably be applied.