Over 2,400 trees uprooted since 2018

From 2018 onwards, Malta’s environmental regulator, the Environment and Resources Authority (ERA) issued permits for the uprooting of 2,418 protected trees and the transplanting of another 1,545.

This emerges from statistics provided to MaltaToday by ERA in reply to questions by the newspaper.

In this timeframe, ERA issued 278 permits that involved the uprooting or transplanting of protected trees.

As compensation for the uprooting of these trees, 12,299 new trees had to be planted.

These included 28 permits issued to Infrastructure Malta for the uprooting or transplanting of trees, while another four permits were issued for pruning.
In these permits Infrastructure Malta was authorized to uproot 854 trees while another 484 trees had to be transplanted. IM was bound to plant 5,341 new trees as compensation for the older trees, which were destroyed.

All permits for interventions on trees, including transplanting and the planting of compensatory trees, have a validity of one year during which the permit holder is obliged to carry out such interventions.

Additionally, permit holders are also obliged with a three-year after-care period from the date of planting.

MaltaToday asked ERA to provide it with information on whether permit conditions included in nature permits are being respected.

But according to ERA “data regarding the successfulness of trees transplanted and planted as compensatory planting during 2018 is still not available.”

In particular MaltaToday asked ERA to provide it with the rate of survival for trees transplanted in 2018 and the survival rate for new trees planted in compensation in the same years. It also asked ERA to state how many persons and entities were found to be in breach of nature permit conditions with regards trees between 2018 and 2020, and how many times Infrastructure Malta was found in breach of nature permit conditions with regards trees between 2018 and 2020.

The ERA spokesperson explained that since permits are issued with an obligation of a 3-year after care period, for “practical reasons” the Authority has focused on monitoring permits issued in 2017 whose after-care period expired in 2020.

This monitoring by ERA is meant to establish whether permit-holders have planted the species and the corresponding quantities of compensatory planting envisaged in the permit. “During the said period, action by the authority was taken in several instances both against breaches to permits issued or on interventions being carried out without the necessary permits.  Some of these cases may still be under contestation.”

One major objection by environmentalists is that old mature trees store more carbon than new saplings. Moreover, environmentalists have also expressed on concern on how saplings have been packed in small spaces. In fact recently IM had to relocate a number of Cypress trees planted beneath a concrete flyover at Msida following criticism on the social media.

Għaqda Sigar Maltin, an arborist awareness NGO, noted that a number of new Cypress, olive and Holm oak trees were planted without leaving an adequate amount of space to allow the trees to flourish. “Trees planted in an urban context have to be well planned well with consideration given on how these related to each other especially when these reach maturity… It is not just a question of numbers.”

About 90 different tree species are protected under the Trees and Woodland Regulations. Moreover, mature trees over 50 years of age that are found outside the development zones, urban conservation areas and public gardens, are also protected.  Prior to 2018 all trees over 50 years old even those within private properties were protected.

Yet protection does not automatically save these trees from being uprooted because legislation contemplates an obligatory compensation with new trees when mature trees are uprooted.