Dwejra to become coastal heritage park

A new management committee has been set up to take responsibility for one of the most beautiful nature spots in the Maltese islands - Dwejra - eventually to become a coastal heritage park.

The project is being undertaken in partnership by the Malta Environment and Planning Authority, the World Wildlife Fund in Italy and Nature Trust (Malta) through EU funding under its LIFE Programme.

Represented in the committee, under the chairmanship of Godwin Debono, are all the stakeholders including the San Lawrenz council, the tourism authorities, boat house owners, fishermen and the Church, among others.

Seventy per cent of the €323,080 needed for the project over a three-year period are being forked out by the LIFE Programme. Nature Trust will contribute €38,060, Mepa €72,600 and WWF Italy €2,420.

The management committee is expected to come up with a management plan in the not too distant future.

Apart from management of the park area, the project would also see to the restoration of the beautiful area which is considered to be of significant ecological, geological and historic importance.

Rural Affairs and Environment Minister George Pullicino said the project was an example of how the government and NGOs could cooperate so that EU funds could be utilised to manage sites that needed positive intervention.

Through the plan for Dwejra the Maltese islands would have the second marine protected area after Mepa started a consultation process to protect Ras il-Mejjiela in the limits of Gnejna.

Mr Pullicino also mentioned plans to launch a pilot project through which boats at Dwejra would operate by the more environmentally friendly electric engines.

Asked about boathouses, particularly illegal structures which had mushroomed in recent years, Mr Pullicino said the situation was under consideration.

He did not envisage that any action would hit the small boathouses which had been built many years ago because these now formed part of the character of Dwejra.

However, there would be the need of interventions on structures which were alien to the way Dwejra developed.

He said that any action by the committee would be carried out in line with Mepa policies.

According to a report prepared by Mepa, the site contains a number of illegal and inappropriate structures that are incompatible with the site's importance as a candidate world heritage site.

The report said that pending the approval of the management plan, all enforcement actions in the area were to be stayed, save for enforcement action to be taken on non-sanctionable structures that were proven to have been built after a photographic survey carried out in 1993.

The report clarifies that this did not mean that structures built illegally in the preceding years would be condoned but their acceptability or otherwise would be determined as part of the management plan for the site.

Additionally, the determination of all applications related to the area should be suspended until the Dwejra management plan was adopted, the report said.

Mr Pullicino referred to exhausted quarries, saying it was unacceptable that these were abandoned when they were no longer in use.

Operators should understand that these needed to be filled with material and restored to be eventually used for agricultural or other purposes.

In past years there had already been attempts to introduce measures that controlled and managed activities in the Dwejra area.

These had included a Dwejra management committee in 2000 but after a number of meetings, in which various short term interventions and activities were identified, the committee was disbanded.

The San Lawrenz council had also taken various initiatives including the commissioning of two reports which highlighted problems and proposed measures, one of which was to turn the Inland Sea into a showcase of Gozitan crafts.