Rabat Wildlife Park’s illegal restaurant wants permit

The owner of a Rabat zoo wants to regularise an illegal restaurant which has been under enforcement orders by the Planning Authority since 2017.

The owner of the Rabat Wildlife Park is seeking a permit to reconstruct a number of structures that were damaged in a fire which cost the life of two leopards in 2017. But the application also foresees the regularisation of an illegal restaurant, a residential quarter and a 1,600sq.m extension of the zoo that was approved in 2014 on a site which is not even contiguous to the approved zoo. The area is described as a “quarantine area” in the application.

The PA had already issued an enforcement notice against the illegal restaurant in 2017. In 2019, a new enforcement notice was issued on illegal cages, and an illegal change-of-use of an agricultural field for the keeping of exotic animals.

The so-called quarantine area includes an attendant quarters and separate enclosures for deer, llamas, tigers and bears.

Despite these illegalities, the Malta Tourism Authority has endorsed the proposal. “The Malta Tourism Authority finds no objection… as long as the catering services act as ancillary facilities of the park,” the MTA said in submissions on the development.

The zoo is located outside developments zones in open countryside, just outside the nearby Natura 2000 site of l-Imtaħleb. It was permitted in 2014 in the face of strong objections by the Environment and Resources Authority’s precursor, the environment protection directorate.

The ERA is now firmly objecting to the application, condemning the practice of first carrying out unjustified, illegal development on ODZ land irrespective of the environmental impacts, and then applying for retroactive sanctioning of the fait accompli. “This behaviour is of major concern, and should not be rewarded through the issuing of a development permit. Such land should remain free from development.”

The ERA also said the quarantine area is not even contiguous with the site and is actually larger than the area currently approved for the zoo itself. The ERA said this exposed the failure to limit the development to a single, self-contained site and risks paving the way for more land uptake to give the two sites some form of operational access routes.

The environmental NGO Din l-Art Helwa also objected to the application, insisting that a restaurant in such a remote, highly sensitive ODZ site was “completely unacceptable and must under no circumstances be entertained by the competent authority”.

Two leopards, a number of monkeys and birds perished during the 2017 fires. But the tigers, lions and bears managed to survive. Owner Christopher Borg, who used to live in a house inside the zoo, claimed that had woken up at around 5am when the lights inside his house started flickering on and off due to a short circuit. He went outside to switch off the electricity and turn on the generator, when he saw a massive fire over the leopards’ enclosure.