Malta seems to have grown a green conscience lately. People are trying to recycle, use litterbins and we’re even telling our children the evils of our past ways.

One can say that the situation is definitely improving. Corporate social responsibility has become the norm with many large companies sponsoring wooded areas.

The government has embarked on various projects including afforestation, educational campaigns and even in controlling emissions, shoring up the old landfills and rehabilitation of wooded areas and countryside.

People have also become more responsible. They are using the bins at the Bring-in Sites, they are trying to generate less waste and finally, the bin-it-rather-than-dump-it attitude seems to be filtering through.

Children, more than anybody else, seem to be flying the flag for the green movement; they are a totally different breed, even to teenagers.

I took a walk in the Mizieb hunting area that lies close to Manikata last week. The hunting season is closed at present, so I thought that I could go for a nice walk with my camera.

I drove leisurely through Mgarr and the Hal Ferh area, turned towards Manikata, and then branched off to Mizieb, which more or less borders the Manikata area.

It was a typical Sunday. Some boys were playing football with their fathers, some women were sitting on rickety folding chairs under trees and I thought I was in for a nice walk, especially seeing that it had been years since I had gone there. I parked my car and started walking, enjoying taking close up shots of nature, but sure enough, there was a twist in store.

The first sign that something was not quite right was the state of a couple of trees, which were charred and burnt. Clearly, there had been a fire, but one could not obviously tell whether it had been a natural scrub fire or whether it had been started deliberately.

I walked on and all was well until I began to come across picnic areas. I was well and truly disgusted. Bits of plastic, bags strewn everywhere, beer cans galore, bits of food, glass bottles. You name it, it was there. I really was shocked. I remembered scenes like that from about five years ago in Ta’ Qali and Buskett, but I thought those times were over.

This was not a case of illegal dumping either. It was simply a case of people leaving a bloody mess behind them. Dustbins are provided, but what really got my goat was that there were plastic bags among the rubbish. These disgusting people could have simply packed up their rubbish (as I did) and take it home. But worse was still to come. As I ventured further, I came across “caveman” cooking sites. The fact that people light fires in wooded areas completely ignoring the signs prohibiting it is bad enough, but leaving the blackened hearthstones there and more mess to go with it is even worse.

But worse was to come, believe it or not. Mizieb is known to be a hunters’ area, but actually seeing the number of hunters’ hides, trip wires and other contraptions made me sick. Some hides were equipped with chairs and camouflaged with ripped up branches and all sorts. Some were even jammed into tree trunks, all in all, they added to the mess. So much for hunters being conservationists. What was supposed to be a nice day out in the country turned out to be quite a sour experience. The worst thing about it is that we constantly moan about our country – but this is a beautiful rock we live on. So why destroy it?