Malta’s National Biodiversity Strategy and Action Plan 2012-2020 (NBSAP) is the country’s response to its international commitments under the Convention of Biological Diversity (CBD). The NBSAP it’s a multi-sectoral strategy and plan with national coverage to be implemented during the 2012-2020 period. The NBSAP serves as a national policy driver to further integrate biodiversity concerns into the plans, programmes and policies of those sectors, which are beneficiaries of ecosystem services and or that may affect Malta’s biological and natural resources. The NBSAP provides a comprehensive policy framework for protecting biodiversity in the Maltese Islands. It also aims at improving the status of biodiversity by safeguarding ecosystems, species and genetic diversity, as well as by reducing pressures on biodiversity and promoting sustainable use. The NBSAP highlights the importance of biodiversity for food security, and it will seek that distinct plant and animal genetic resources for food and agriculture are conserved as a genetic insurance in the face of environmental and climate risks as well as for food security. The NBSAP will promote the sustainable use of natural resources, including soil, water and land. It will seek to address the underlying causes of biodiversity loss, reduce the direct pressures of biodiversity, improve the status of biodiversity, enhance the benefits from biodiversity and ecosystem services, and enhance implementation of the NBSAP. It will seek that national authorities responsible for overseeing the sustainable use of resources (environment, agriculture, fisheries and water) and, for the regulation of species trade and the movement of non- native species, are well-equipped with adequate human, financial and technical means. It will also encourage the positive and active role of Maltese farmers as stewards of agrobiodiversity and in the maintenance of the countryside and rural environment. The NBSAP will seek eco-efficient facilities, which adopt the cleaner production approach, and use environmentally-sound and innovative technologies. In addition, the NBSAP will reach out to farming, fisheries and aquaculture cooperatives, as well as hunting associations, to foster new partnerships and new projects or other collaborative work in support of biodiversity. The NBSAP will seek that sustainable waste management via waste prevention, re-use and recycling results in a generally positive impact on the natural environment and is supported by increased public awareness and cooperation to adopt more resource efficient lifestyles thereby reversing trends of waste generation across the different waste stream. In addition, the NBSAP take into account the interlinkages of climate change and biodiversity when designing adaptation and mitigation activities, so as to ensure that such activities are both compatible with policies for the protection of biodiversity in Malta and the goals of creating a climate-resilient and low- carbon economy. Implementation of the NBSAP will require collective action across sectors and at all levels using existing or updated environmental and relevant sectoral policy instruments. A review of the implementation of the NBSAP will be undertaken in 2014, in 2017 and in 2020.
Malta’s National Biodiversity Strategy and Action Plan 2012-2020.