Many Maltese people visit Buskett for picnics at the weekend, lured by the shade and cool of the trees.
But how many are aware of the place’s unique nature? Sandra Aquilina spoke to leading botanist Edwin Lanfranco about the teeming life systems supported by Malta’s largest wooded area.
Do I contradict myself? Very well, then, I contradict myself. I am large, I contain multitudes.
Walt Whitman, Song of Myself
I went into the woods because I wanted to live deliberately, I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life… to put to rout all that was not life; and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.”
Henry David Thoreau, Walden
The enchanted forests in fairytale lore cannot have scared many Maltese children. The image was too remote – what forests? What woods? Malta’s scarce wooded areas and massive urbanisation relegated enchanted forests and the like safely to the realm of fairytales.
With one possible exception: Buskett – Malta’s largest woodland area. Here, although the area is popular with Maltese people for recreational purposes, the towering trees and rich undergrowth have allowed the place to retain an aura of teeming life.
In 1998, afforested areas only accounted for 1.43 per cent of the total surface area of the Maltese archipelago, according to Nature Trust’s publication Archipelago. This makes Buskett all the more valuable as it supports a web of life structures which are not easily found anywhere else on our islands.
Buskett, in fact, incorporates a whole variety of communities: woodland, watercourse, maquis, garigue, caves and cliff-sides.
It has been declared a bird sanctuary, a special area of conservation, an area of ecological importance, a site of scientific importance and a nature reserve under various legal instruments of the Environment Protection Act and the Development Planning Act. It has also been proposed as a special protection area and a special area of conservation in terms of the Natura 2000 network, set up through the provisions of EU Birds and Habitats Directives respectively.
Buskett is spread over various layers, explained leading botanist Edwin Lanfranco. Some parts of it can be said to have a definite layout, but in other areas there are a number of passages and pathways which give the impression of a labyrinth – the pathways need to be known and some climbing can be involved.
Although this place is very popular with the public for recreational purposes, many people tend to gather in specific areas – so that they are not too far from their cars and can have a comfortable picnic, said Mr Lanfranco. Although – except for the parts which are cultivated for agricultural purposes, no specific areas are forbidden to visitors – some areas of Buskett are not visited by many people, he said.
“Probably – although we do not have complete evidence on this – Buskett was formed over the remnants of an old forest,” he explained. “In fact that part of Buskett called ‘il-Bosk’ – where there are a number of evergreen or Holm oaks (ballut) – is probably part of the original forest. Then, in the time of the Knights, Buskett was modified for other purposes – for example, for hunting – and some animals were also introduced to be hunted by the Grandmaster and his guests. In fact the Grandmaster’s summer residence – Verdala Palace – was close by.”
Originally, Buskett was augmented with a lot of fruit trees – it was treated like an orchard – and to this day a part of it is still used in this manner, Mr Lanfranco pointed out.
“But eventually, after the Knights left, in the past 100 years or so, its use has changed a little. It has started becoming more of a forested area – a lot of pine trees (znuber; sigar tal-prinjoli) and cypress trees (cipress) were introduced – and that is mainly its current form.
“In time these trees started growing on their own – and new trees were formed. In addition, a number of exotic trees were introduced. Apart from the fruit trees, other trees such as the American pecan nut and walnut were introduced – so now there is a good mixture.”
Apart from the area known as Il-Bosk, there is also a valley in Buskett – Wied il-Luq (Poplar Valley), through which water runs, said Mr Lanfranco. This supports trees which shed their leaves, like the poplar and the ash (fraxxnu).
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“As a place, Buskett is somewhat unique for Malta. First of all, it is practically the only woodland there is. No other similar places remain in Malta – although in Mizieb, for instance, an artificial forest was formed,” he said.
In the old days, there were a number of forests in Malta, said Mr Lanfranco. “We do not have direct evidence, because it is a long time since they vanished – but it is likely that in certain areas, particularly in the west of Malta, there were a number of forests, especially of oak and pine trees. But these were destroyed mainly to make space for agriculture.”
Buskett supports a river woodland type of community at Wied il-Luq, Mr Lanfranco explained, so the type of trees that grow there – and the undergrowth – are not found in many other localities elsewhere in Malta, except for small patches here and there, because such communities, occurring on fertile irrigated ground, have been largely cleared for agriculture. “If well-protected, it could provide a sanctuary for particular types of environment.”
Buskett is also important for its fauna, said Mr Lanfranco. “Because of the nature of its environment, there are several species of animals – especially insects – which are not often found in other places.”
Some plant species which have become very rare in the Maltese islands still exist in Buskett, he said. However, he points out that because of the way the place is used, there has been a lot of disturbance. “At Buskett, there is a superimposition of various types of environments – there is the natural environment and then – superimposed upon it – are the various interventions: the orchards, agriculture, areas cleared for recreational use, so a lot of changes have been made to its original state.”
This has resulted in some plant species which used to be common in Buskett dying out completely or becoming very rare. “The problem is that there is a tendency to treat it like a garden rather than as a natural environment. True, the place is not completely natural because so many changes have been made – but it still has its natural aspect. So a lot of changes were made because it was being managed as a garden. And the flora of the place was treated as an intruder because it was not man-made!”
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This raises the question of the present state of Buskett, which is government-managed. When asked about the management of Buskett, Environment Ministry spokeswoman Sharon Cassar said that the Environmental and Landscapes Consortium is responsible for the upkeep of Buskett. “This includes the upkeep of the groves of fruit tree together with the general maintenance of the area (grass cutting, pruning etc). At the moment, the waterway, which has been neglected for a very long time, is being cleared.”
Ms Cassar added that personnel from the PARKs department and the Agriculture department are restoring rubble walls and handling the general clearing of litter in the area.
Plans are underway to set up a management committee to serve both as a monitoring and advisory board on the upkeep of the whole Buskett area, she said.
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Of the species that are dying out or have become rare at Buskett, Mr Lanfranco mentioned a type of fleabane (tulliera tal-Buskett, pulicaria dysenterica) which used to be very abundant at Buskett. Now it has almost completely died out, except for the rare specimen here and there.
This is an indigenous plant which – other than Buskett – seems to exist only at Ghajn il-Kbira (Girgenti), he explained. The gladdon, a type of iris (fjurdulis tal-bosk; iris foetidissima), endures in small numbers only at Wied il-Luq.
There is also a type of star-of-Bethlehem (ornithogalum divergens) which made a reappearance at Buskett last year after an absence lasting decades, said Mr Lanfranco. “We only found two specimens. Unfortunately it is quite close to a recreation area – in fact when I saw it last year it had been trampled on. Fortunately it is a plant with a bulb so the damage was only aesthetic and no real harm was done.”
Another plant, a moon-orchid, has disappeared from Buskett. “There was only one specimen that I knew of and it has disappeared. The likelihood is that it was picked – it is quite striking and was growing quite close to a path, so it must have attracted attention.”
There are also other species which, although not found exclusively at Buskett, are not found in many other places. These include the grey sedge (soghda; carex divulsa) as well as indigenous trees like poplars and oak trees.
“Moreover, Buskett also contains a large variety of mushrooms because they are usually associated with various trees. Many records of mushrooms are from Buskett alone.”
Speaking about Maltese flora in general, Mr Lanfranco said that a large proportion of Maltese flora is endangered, threatened or very rare. “Although there have not been many actual extinctions – around 50 or so species have become extinct in the past 100 years – there is a large number of species which are very restricted in number. In some cases, we know of only one plant or one population,” he said.
The reasons for this are various, he said. One is, of course, the changing environment – mainly because of human intervention. The effects of human presence may not necessarily be only direct – such as land use – he said. Even elements such as exhaust fumes can change the quality of the air and the nature of the water in the soil.
“So, many plants are losing out to competition from others. Broadly speaking, there are two types of plants: those which are tolerant to a lot of changes, and those which are intolerant and can only grow under very specific conditions. These last are losing out because of the large number of changes. So what is happening is that some plants have become very common while others are becoming rarer and rarer.”
Unfortunately, there are several cases of plants which are on the verge of extinction, said Mr Lanfranco. However, he said, only a few of the more than 20 endemic species – those which grow only in Malta – are really endangered.
“But because Maltese endemic plants occur in a much smaller geographic range than many other endemic species of other larger countries, all endemic plants are potentially endangered by international standards.
“Nevertheless, some are more in danger than others. I think that the most endangered plant is the Maltese toadflax (papocci ta’ Malta; Linaria pseudolaxiflora). This plant only grows in the Maltese Islands and the nearby island of Linosa and its numbers have fallen drastically in both places. This is probably because of the changes I have mentioned, because although its environment still exists, soil and air conditions have changed. It is now on the verge of extinction – and because it has a very narrow geographical distribution, this will mean that it may vanish completely.”
The Maltese everlasting flower (sempreviva ta’ Ghawdex; helichrysum melitense), for instance, only grows on the western cliffs of Gozo. “In the past, we had – because it no longer exists – what could have been a local form of plant called the Venus’ looking-glass – a plant which is associated with agriculture. It disappeared because agricultural practices began to change.
“The recently described Maltese pondweed (harira ta’ l-ilma; zannichellia melitensis) is also an endemic plant and grows in a very vulnerable environment – in rainwater rockpools. Since these are subject to many influences, such as run-offs, I would say it’s vulnerable.”
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The precarious existence of some rare plants make one wonder whether they are monitored or protected at all, or whether their survival is left to chance. When asked this question, Mepa PRO Sylvana Debono said that: “With respect to threatened species, various projects have been carried out or are in hand, and these include a variety of plant species. For example, through financial assistance provided by MedPAN, the endangered rare endemic Maltese cliff orache, (cremnophyton lanfrancoi, Maltese: bjanka ta’ l-irdum) was successfully propagated using in-vitro techniques in a joint project carried out by the former Environment Protection Department (now part of Mepa), the Plant Biotechno-logy Centre and the University of Malta.
“In-vitro propagation technique (Latin for propagation “in glass”) refers to a technique of propagation usually carried out in laboratories and generally involving the growth of microbe-free plant material in a sterile environment, such as a sterilised nutrient medium in lab equipment like a test tube or petri-dish.
“A similar project was carried out on the very rare and critically endangered Maltese everlasting flower, (helichrysum melitense, Maltese: sempreviva ta’ Ghawdex). A number of projects are also ongoing, dealing with endangered plant species such as the southern birthwort (Aristolochia clusii, Maltese: papra selvagga) and the thorny burnet (sarcopoterium spinosum Maltese: tursin il-ghul xewwieki). Moreover, various rare and threatened tree species, including some of the rare species found at Buskett, have been successfully propagated and are now being employed in afforestation and/or restoration projects.”
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Buskett will shortly be the focus of some attention as Maltese people from all over the island will go there at the end of this month to celebrate the traditional faest of Mnarja. This is dedicated to St Peter and St Paul, and documents show that festivities associated with this date began in the 14th century. However, the Mnarja puts some stress on the woodland.
“The Mnarja festivities do not create a permanent problem because they are an annual event and the place is resilient. But the celebrations sometimes bring a lot of vandalism and rubbish,” says Mr Lanfranco.
Is Buskett at all in danger? Is its future safeguarded? How should it be managed?
“I think certain areas should be managed as a nature reserve – for instance, Wied il-Luq, il-Bosk and some other areas. Other parts can be left for the enjoyment of people – for picnics and so on. It’s important that there should be effective wardening; often a lot of damage and vandalism go on there – trees are burnt or destroyed, rubbish is dumped. So it is important not just to have a committee which comes up with a policy but that there is actual wardening, also to make sure that no hunting takes place because it is forbidden.
“I think that if the management of Buskett recognises that it is part of our natural heritage there is a good chance of it being protected for future generations. But if it is treated as just a garden, it might be in danger because it is not a garden. Although there are the orchards which have become gardens, large areas of it are not a garden, and should be treated as they are – a forest and a valley...”
Interview made possible through Nature Trust (Malta)