I decided to go down to Dwejra this afternoon.

I find this area very interesting especially given all the fossils contained in the rocks there. I couldn’t believe what I found.

Well that’s not strictly true; I could believe it as it’s Gozo.

Apparently a film was being shot here earlier in the week or more specifically a few minutes of a movie. They decided that they needed a beach so all the rock was covered with plastic sheets and tonnes of sand was brought in on lorries and dumped there and spread out with a bulldozer.

Remember this area is covered in fossils millions of years old! Today Thursday the bulldozer and lorries were back driving over the top of this old fossil bed to scoop the sand back into the lorries to be taken away. I think the photos speak for themselves!

Now my question here is who within the Gozo Ministry gave permission for this to be done?

Why in this day and age was it necessary to cause damage to an ancient area of the island in this way when the technology exists to digitally add a beach to a scene if required?

I saw tourists today looking at the area and wondering why it looked like a landfill site. What a disgusting way to treat such a beautiful area.

■ James A. Tyrrell,

County Antrim,

N. Ireland