Dinja Wahda and Bank of Valletta representatives together with a group of primary school children teamed up to clear litter from the Rdum tal-Madonna Natura 2000 site at L-Ahrax tal-Mellieha in an attempt to keep the rat population at bay.

Walking around the site, around 40 children from Mellieha Primary and from Mosta Primary B learned about the different plants and habitats and then cleared picnic litter from the area as the food attracts rats, which then prey on the eggs of the two types of shearwater found in Malta, the Yelkouan Shearwater and Scopoli’s Shearwater.

The Maltese Islands are home to 10 per cent of the global population of the Yelkouan Shearwater and to 5 per cent of the Scopoli’s. Around 500 pairs of Yelkouans breed at Rdum tal-Madonna colony every year.

L-Irdum tal-Madonna is one of Malta’s richest Natura 2000 protected sites.  These sites contain the most threatened habitats and species in Europe.  There are more than 26,000 Natura 2000 sites in Europe, covering 18 per cent of the continent and surrounding seas.

Bank of Valletta is proud to collaborate once again with Birdlife Malta in its education programme, Dinja Wahda, which reaches an impressive number of young individuals every year.

“The growing enthusiasm demonstrated by schoolchildren year after year reaffirms the positive values that such a programme instils, helping children embrace environmental issues through entertaining and educational initiatives. After the activity, the children plan to give presentations to the rest of the school so that the impact of the activity will be spread to others,” Head of Media and Community Relations Vanessa Macdonald said.