Ta' Ċenċ

I recently visited Ta' Ċenċ cliffs on Gozo. I spent only a few minutes there, just enough time to take a few pictures but it was enough to recall memories of July 1978 when I saw these cliffs for the first time. I was taking part in an outing organised by the Young Members Section of the Malta Ornithological Society which I had joined some months before. I knew that we had gone to Gozo to 'see' the Cory's shearwater but I had no idea what to expect. On arriving at Sannat, the small quite village next to Ta' Ċenċ, we walked towards the cliffs arriving there at dusk. I remember seeing a couple of blue rock thrushes on the rocks and somebody pointed out a short toed lark flying overhead. We also saw some shallow depressions in the dust. One of the more experienced leaders said that these were made by the short toed larks to sleep in. This was all very exciting because I had never seen these things before but this was nothing compared to what we were about to see and hear. When it became totally dark we walked towards the edge of the cliff and soon we started to hear the distant crying of the Cory's shearwaters. The crying golouder as the birds got closer to the cliffs. Within minutes the distant solitary calls became a single cacophony orchestrated by hundreds or thousands of shearwaters screaming like lost souls in the dark.

After that memorable summer I kept visiting Ta' Ċenċ every year to listen to the shearwaters. I introduced many of my friends to these birds and although many had no particular interest in nature many of them say that still remember the visit and I am often asked to organise another one for them.
In the late eighties Ta' Ċenċ was proposed as a site for a tourist village. the plan was to build up the whole plateau The 'developers wanted to have two hotels, hundreds of villas and bungalows, a church, a golf course, scening lift on the cliff face and even a helicopter pad.

When the environmentalists, who at the time were few in number got to know about the project they were shocked. The project would have destroyed one of the most important birds areas in the Maltese islands. There was no time to loose. Nature and environmental societies got together and pooled their resources to stop this madness. They organised an all out campaign to draw the public's attention to the destruction that was being planned. The campaign was not easy. Most people had not been to Ta' Ċenċ and did not even know about its existence. There was little awareness about the need to protect nature and the environment and there were no legal structures which could be utilised to stop the project . The campaign was successful. After months of campaigning Ta' Ċenċ was saved but it seems that we have not learnt our lesson. Twenty years later environmentalists still have to campaign to stop attempts to destroy Malta's natural treasures while speculators are still nibbling away the last few remaining open spaces.