Eco-tourism!

While the Ministry of Tourism is struggling to bring tourists to Malta in the off season and shoulder months and to promote eco-tourism, we have a number of people in this country trying their best to make visitors not welcome.

I have noticed in the last weeks a considerable number of hunters shooting from roads at or towards tourists hiking in the countryside. There are places where bird trappers have taken it on themselves to destroy huge areas of natural garigue with all the beautiful and varied wild flowers and shrubs in them, to turn them into wide open trapping sites (on public land).

Promoting eco-tourism is a joke when one considers that all land in Malta is dangerous to hike or walk in around this time. I receive countless brochures promoting walking tours in other countries around this time and in spring. Here the chances of being shot at or harassed is very real! Why can't the government make a large area of natural beauty and clear it of trapping sites and hunters and declare it a real national park?