A European Regional Development Fund project for the conservation and
presentation of the Hagar Qim and Mnajdra Archaeological Park is presently
being implemented by Heritage Malta. The greater part of the EUR 4,213,500
cost (excluding VAT) - 64.7 per cent - will be funded by European funds - while
the rest will be funded by the Maltese government.

The goal of the project is on the one hand the conservation of these sites
and on the other their better interpretation - which will include a new
visitors' centre. The proposed visitors' centre will be the visitors'
launching pad to the sites and to the landscape of which they form a part.
It will be a building on two levels which will be wrapped into the existing
carpark, which has a capacity in excess of the carrying capacity of the
archaeological park. In addition, the proposed centre will be fitted into an
area of which the surface has already been degraded, containing the impact.

It will provide basic amenities which are now sadly lacking: better
cloakrooms, a small cafeteria and a souvenir and book shop. It will also
help visitors get basic orientation around the site, apart from improved
security arrangements, accommodation space for staff and so on. That is one
half of its role - the other half is interpretation proper. It will serve as
a preparation for visitors, explaining the cultural and natural resources
that one is about to encounter, to maximise the experience.

The debate on the conservation of the megalithic temples is an old one.
People have been aware that the sites are threatened since at least the 19th
century but increasingly during the course of the 20th century. In 2000, a
Scientific Committee for the Conservation of the Megalithic Temples was set
up and began studying the threats with a view to recommending solutions to
government. After careful consideration, one of the recommendations was that
the most prudent and most urgently-required intervention to mitigate the
problem was the installation of temporary protective shelters, while
research on other treatments and solutions continues. Direct material
intervention on the structure itself may often be much more risky because if
the wrong action is taken, it will be very difficult to correct. Further
research is required to define safe and reliable methods of preserving these
structures without the need for protective shelters. In the case of the
shelters, the worst-case scenario is that if their performance is not
satisfactory, and if the protection they provide does not justify the visual
intrusion, they can - quite literally - be wrapped up and removed.

In order to better understand the processes that are damaging the
prehistoric structures, a project for the intensive environmental monitoring
of the sites has been launched. This project, which will cost e159,000, is
being fully funded out of European Pre-Accession Funds. Thanks to these
funds, it has been possible to secure the services of a renowned research
institution to carry out this monitoring programme, namely the Institute of
Atmospheric Sciences and Climate (ISAC), which forms part of Italy's
National Research Council (CNR). The information that is being gathered in
this project will help define the conservation needs of the site and the
detailed design of the protective shelters, and eventually will also help in
the assessment of the shelters' performance.

The project is currently at the public consultation stage. Tenders for
project management, for the documentation of Hagar Qim and Mnajdra and for
security and lighting have been issued. The project should be completed by
2008, with the visitor centre building completed in 2007 and the protective
shelters in place by the start of the rainy season in autumn 2007. A Full
Project Description Statement submitted to Mepa is currently available at
http://www.heritagemalta.org/hagarqim.html