The six caravans that had moved into the Foresta 2000 site earlier this month left the protected countryside, environmental organisations said.

Nature Trust (Malta), Din l-Art Ħelwa and BirdLife Malta said yesterday the caravans were part of a larger group evicted from an area adjacent to the Mellieħa Bay Hotel on June 30. These had then moved into the project site in Mellieħa but the NGOs had complained and demanded their immediate removal.

The NGOs met Mellieħa mayor Robert Cutajar last week and he later informed them the caravans would be leaving within a few days. Some caravans left last week and the remaining few left yesterday.

"We thank Mr Cutajar for taking swift action to solve the problem. We believe communication between the authorities and NGOs has to improve in order to avoid similar problems in other protected areas in the future," the NGOs said.

The Foresta 2000 afforestation project is managed by the Parks Department of the Rural Affairs Ministry, BirdLife Malta and DLĦ. The site is a bird sanctuary and has international protection as a Natura 2000 site, under the EU nature conservation directives.

In May 2007, the Foresta 2000 site had been vandalised when over 3,000 trees were either damaged or uprooted.

Sign up to our free newsletters

Get the best updates straight to your inbox:
Please select at least one mailing list.

You can unsubscribe at any time by clicking the link in the footer of our emails. We use Mailchimp as our marketing platform. By subscribing, you acknowledge that your information will be transferred to Mailchimp for processing.