Environment Minister Jose Herrera today said that the government will be giving priority to the upkeep of Malta and Gozo's rural environments.

Following a news conference regarding waste separation on public beaches, The Malta Independent asked Herrera whether initiatives to reduce waste in rural areas are also in the pipeline.

"When it comes to the rural areas, I am pleased to announce that the Prime Minister assigned Valley Management to my ministry, which is basically a nucleus, but the plan is to expand this within the framework of Ambjent Malta which will be launched," he replied, adding, "the idea is the upkeep and maintenance of rural areas, so it's going be a priority for my ministry to look after the upkeep of rural areas."

"We have beautiful rural areas, but unfortunately they are not always kept in the way they should be kept, we have rubble walls which are in a bad state, passage ways which are blocked, illegal dumping areas, we have a lot of filth, we have also invasive species which have to be removed and we have to plant local fauna and more forestation where we can," he continued.

"The country side is crying for an upgrade, and I decided to make this one of my priorities, that is why I will be launching Environment Malta which is based on the Heritage Malta module, and therefore we are going to invest a lot in this area," he said.    

Earlier, Herrera launched a pilot project aimed at raising awareness and putting into practice waste separation on three Maltese beaches in the North of the island.

Speaking at Golden Bay, one of the three beaches, the Environment Minister explained that daily, Golden Bay, Ghajn Tuffieha Bay and Ghadira Bay, which are part of the Natura 2000 network, will have five people and one promoter deployed on each beach, guiding and encouraging people to separate, as well as sorting out any mixed recyclables which may have gotten mixed together.

"Tourists are likely to generate twice as much waste as a Maltese citizen when they are on holiday," Herrera said, adding that "separation of waste should not only happen at home."

By separating the waste into metal, plastic and glass recyclables, Herrera explained that the separation process will this way be occurring "at source," making the separation process "more efficient". He added that he also sees the initiative as an educative aspect.

Wasteserv CEO Tonio Montobello, who was also present at the news conference, said that this pilot project will help the team to understand each beach. "We will get to know the peak times of the beaches and we will study how the best way to about the situation for each beach," he said.

"Without disturbing the tourists, because tourists are priority for us, but in a friendly way by example, we will show the people that you have to separate waste," said Montobello.  

"The issue of waste in this legislature is going to be a top priority. We need to find new ways of addressing waste, in line of the EU targets and principles of the Circle Economy. We cannot do this efficiently if we don't have separation," Herrera told this newspaper.