News | Sunday, 26 July 2009

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Brussels investigating Malta’s special areas of conservation

Alternattiva Demokratika has received confirmation from Environment Commissioner Stavros Dimas that the Commission’s environment directorate will be investigating whether the government is complying with the Special Area of Conservation Directive.
AD said that when the government designate Malta’s SACs, it had to draw up management plans for these sites, detailing how the conservation objections in the EU’s Habitats Directive would be achieved.
“These management plans have not been drafted to date with the result that MEPA has effectively given itself a free hand to decide on each case separately without necessarily keeping in view the objectives of the EU Habitats Directive,” AD said.
AD’s spokesperson for sustainable development and local government Carmel Cacopardo had written to Commissioner Dimas to request the Commissioner to investigate Malta’s mismanagement of SACs, including Mistra and Buskett, in breach of its obligations defined in the EU Habitats Directive.
“AD believes that it is in our own interest and the interests of future generations that such areas are managed correctly. Our common heritage deserves protection,” Cacopardo said.
AD had held a press conference at Mistra, following the issuing of a permit by MEPA for an open air disco during the MEP campaign, on land belonging to Nationalist MP Jeffrey Pullicino Orlando land.
The area is protected in terms of the Habitats’ Directive of the EU.
A year ago, the MEPA board had withdrawn an outline permit for a permanent open-air disco on the same site, in view of the fact that the proposed activities were not compatible with the same Habitat’s Directive of the EU. AD had asked MEPA to explain why it had changed its mind within the space of a few months when nothing else had changed.

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