Moviment Graffitti is once again appealing to the authorities to stop the indiscriminate uprooting of trees that has been taking place for the last number of years. It’s very clear that those responsible for the planning and embellishment of roads, plazas, gardens etc. have no affinity whatsoever for the natural environment, since in such types of ‘development’, trees are often the first victims. The uprooting of trees in Marsa is just the most recent case of such types of indiscriminate uprooting.

We are fed up of making pressure to end this massacre. It is a big hypocrisy that while the government boasts of such concepts as environmental sustainability and protection, it is drastically inept from implementing this ideology in practice. The ‘Tree 4 U’ Campaign is just a buzzword to alienate people from the environmental disaster being sustained on a regular basis by the authorities themselves.

In view of the fact that in most gardens, trees are being uprooted to be replaced by concrete, and in

embellishment projects long-standing trees are being uprooted to be replaced by other expensive ones, running into thousands of euro per tree, Moviment Graffitti feels the need to question: In whose interest is this taking place? Who is benefiting from this situation, some particular developers or us citizens who are paying for these projects with our own taxes?

Moviment Graffitti is thus once again appealing for this type of massacre to stop and for concrete actions to be taken to safeguard present trees while ensuring that those which for justifiable reasons cannot remain in their original place, are uprooted in a professional manner so as to be duly planted in another safe place. At present, the trees that are being uprooted are being butchered and would surely not be in a position to survive if planted elsewhere.

If it is true that you treasure the natural environment: Stop the hypocrisy. Stop uprooting trees!

■ Mary Grace Vella

Moviment Graffitti