Government targets invasive alien species through launch of FAST project
In 2020 alone, around 100 tons of terrestrial invasive alien species were removed from the Maltese islands
18 April 2021, 10:06am
by Karl Azzopardi
Government has tasked itself with tackling the issue of invasive alien species in the country’s bio-diversity with the launch of the FAST project.
FAST - Fight Alien Species Transborder, is a joint collaboration between the Animal Rights Ministry, the Environment Ministry, the University of Malta, ERA and Ambjent Malta, all under the supervision of the University of Catania.
The project will see the monitoring and evaluation of Invasive Alien Species (IAS) on local habitat, and the eventual restoration of such natural habitats over the 30-month duration of the project, which will end in May 2023.
Newsbook
March 2, 2021 12:04 PM
Following the successful launch of the HARMONY project’s underwater CCTV camera at the Malta National Aquarium last summer, within the same project, a team within the Department of Geosciences of the Faculty of Science (Prof. Alan Deidun, Dr Adam Gauci, Johann Galdies) conceived the design of an animation clip on marine Invasive Alien Species (IAS) so as to better inform the general public about the hazards posed by the entry of such species.
The clip, which has been uploaded on social media, summarises in layman’s terms the salient points concerning the mechanisms which lead to the transfer of marine IAS from one geographical regional to another, to their ecological and socio-economic impacts as well as to possible management solutions.