Give beaches a break in summer

Abstract

With each bathing season we get the usual agonising reports of heavy machinery being used on beaches, mainly to clear deposits of dead Posidonia oceanica (a seagrass, not a seaweed) litter or to bury mounds of pebbles lest they interfere with bathers’ stroll into the sea. This year was no exception, with bathers at Għajn Tuffieħa getting a rude awakening when they were confronted with heavy machinery that had been called in to ‘groom’ the beach from dead seagrass litter. It is utterly incredible how such outdated practices still persist, in a Natura 2000 site to boot, despite the many times it has been clearly explained that such heavy-handed tactics wreak ecological damage to the beach ecosystem, besides making the sand structure more prone to erosion.