Having just returned from a two week holiday in Gozo I have found that the eco-island concept is alive and well in at least one part of the island. While visiting friends in Qala they told me about the major problem they had in their back garden with snails and slugs.

Now the people in question could have went down the well trodden path of using pesticides or some such poison to bring the problem under control. However, being people after my own heart who care a lot for the environment they came up with an eco-island solution. They hired a pair of ducks for a month.

Nothing gets rid of snails like a pair of ducks and the only by-product is fertiliser for the garden, although a certain amount of that fertiliser found it’s way onto the patio as the ducks tend to go where the snails go!

Can I therefore suggest that Minister Giovanna DeBono takes the bull by the horns, or duck by the wings, with regard to this eco-island initiative and immediately organise annual duck hiring fairs? I’ve even found the perfect location for the breeding of these ducks. We could cut down all that bamboo in the old quarry at Hondoq and revert it back to the way it was in 1951 and form a large duck pond.

So come and let’s get this eco-island thing off the ground and get those snails under control in an environmentally friendly way.

James A. Tyrrell

County Antrim,

N. Ireland