INTERVIEW BY ZILLAH BUGEJA
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Filming and producing documentaries is my love and passion. I started filming five years ago, but have been diving for the past 25 years. I started at the age of eight, and my father still dives at 65.

The Biological Conservation Research Foundation is a non-government and non-profit organisation which is creating an awareness to the serious dangers and environmental problems around our coast. BICREF and myself are hosting a cocktail party at the Corinthia San Gorg this Wednesday, during which we will show underwater footage shot locally and overseas, organise a talk by leading environmentalist Dr Pierre Beaubrun, and hopefully raise some money. The campaign should shed some light on the critical hazards our waters are facing. The problem with our seas is that too many random developments with little consideration for the biodiversity in our seas have resulted in causing certain species, such as the local dolphin and porpoises, to be in danger of being lost for good.

The main damage being done to the sea is from pollution, mainly due to the fact that only a small percentage of our sewage is treated. What
individuals can do is to be careful what we actually throw down our sinks.

Unbelievably, not even cigarette butts are biodegradable. They are more harmful for birds than for the sea itself because birds will swallow them, thinking they are food, and subsequently choking on them.

My main passion being the sea, I thank God that I am surrounded by it. What just gets to me is that every year I see it getting worse. The majority thinks it's just great, but it isn't.

I have made a contract with Discovery Channel to film our underwater temples. We have come across really straight lines dug deep into the rocks. There are big protruding rocks in the whole area, and we have found a small plate which we handed over to the archaeology department. The Discovery Channel unit is filming all of our temples, and this underwater temple may just change our whole history.

Apart from filming, I run Agius and Agius bookshop, which I've been doing for the past 10 years. Besides doing that I am setting up another two businesses, one in media and another division in books.

I relax when I am under water, getting my serenity behind the camera. I have to dive every week, or be on my boat at least. Everywhere here is a good place to dive. We don't have really big fish, because everything's been hunted down. At least we have small, interesting and beautiful marine life which we don't really appreciate – I want to make a film about macro Malta too. The focus has to be on the small things, like in everything else.

I believe we can do something about helping the conservation of our sea. One way would be through visiting divers who are obliged to pay Lm1 to the Health Department to get a certificate to be allowed to dive. They could pay an extra Lm1, which would go towards monitoring of conservation areas.

This is still the only place where you are allowed to spear-fish with cylinders. Not that I'm not against it, I just think we need to restrict the areas where it is allowed. I don't think that guns fit in with the dive sites we are trying to create.

What we are saying is, at least give us areas where we can have monitored conservation. No government is going to remove the fish farms or the tuna pens. I am making a documentary about local fishermen and the hardships they go through while catching tuna. They are such hard-working people, using 42 miles of line with 1,500 hooks over a period of four days. This long-line technique does have a lot of casualties, because young swordfish, lampuki, turtles and manta rays go for the bait too. The fishermen's main competition is fish farming. The foreigners use spotter planes which they round up in nets, bring back to the pens and subsequently slaughter when they are the right size. The 200-odd fishermen that are left are struggling to
find fish from the depleted stocks. I don't want to give my own views, just show both sides of the story.

I've been producing underwater documentaries for the past five years, and they have been shown on local TV since 1999. Last year three of my films were nominated in the Antibes Underwater Film Festival. I have a whole new series coming out next year. I am showing areas around the world where people are allowed and encouraged to feed sharks. While it is good for tourism, it may encourage shark attacks, and affect the feeding patterns of the sharks themselves, who ironically, show up as soon as the boat pulls up for food. Sometimes the sharks don't even go for the bait…I'm not judging anyone, I document the situation and leave it up to the viewer to decide. I've filmed shark feeding in Santiago, South Africa, Australia and the Bahamas and I've one more place to do, on the west coast of America, I'm a bit concerned about the situation there right now, I don't feel like dying yet.

My company Planet Sea has made short clips for local TV about pollution. The message is that we have to act now to save marine life. The amount of plastic that is thrown in the seas is horrific, it kills so many things.

Playmobil is helping us in our mission too. Planet Sea is creating a Save Our Seas campaign aimed at children, and Playmobil have come up with a dolphin as the mascot because it is one of the most intelligent mammals in our seas. Playmobil were behind the traffic campaign for children, which is still going strong, and along with the success of Xummiemu, I feel that the dolphin (which is really cool and spins around when placed in water), should go down well too. We have to start doing something for our seas.

About 500 children will be brought over to see the marine environmental awareness campaign on Wednesday. The children will take part in a competition and be able to win prizes.

During the event next Wednesday, and afterwards, we will be raising money to buy a sea vessel to help BICREF continue with their research,
which may cost almost Lm6,000. Why can't NGOs benefit from duty-free goods?

I'd like to thank the companies who have given us a prize to raise money in this regard: Air Malta, British Airways, Maltacom, MTA, Corinthia Group and Scubapro. Finding sponsors is so difficult, especially at this time of the year. They all know the importance of our sea to tourism.