The Environment Minister Leo Brincat addressing a public consultation meeting on the preservation of trees reiterated the Government’s commitment on protecting trees, saying that “Labour’s electoral pledge number 56: was to continually safeguard existent trees and incentivise the planting of new ones, especially indigenous trees and that it was his duty and obligation to carry it out.”

The Minister said that it is well know that exisiting lasw do not provide adequate proctection to trees, both in urban and rural areas. “Even worse, these laws were weakened over the years. Logic says that first we must strengthen the legal framework before starting to plant new trees which could still risk being uprooted,. And this is before any intensive planting of new trees that could be exposed to the blatant abuse and treatment carried out by people who ought to know better,” he said.

“It was important to leave an open invitation and not exclude anyone from among individuals and organizations to have their say on trees. It was important that we as Ministry invite various bodies and Government departments, including Ministries, to see that they all agreed to lead by example,” the Minister said. “We have made an open invitation to all economic operators and local councils.” This proposal has gone down well with environmentalists.

The public consultation meeting was attended to by a number of stakeholders, Government departments, Ministries, economic operators and local councils.

Proposals and suggestions put forward will be included in a legal notice regulating the sector.

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