Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/475084
maltatoday, SUNDAY, 8 MARCH 2015 24 Letters Send your letters to: The Editor, MaltaToday, MediaToday Ltd. Vjal ir-Rihan, San Gwann SGN 9016 | Fax: (356) 21 385075 E-mail: newsroom@mediatoday.com.mt. Letters to the Editor should be concise. No pen names are accepted. Don't stay at home: use your vote! MEPA enforcement orders Government should stop bee imports The hunting lobby has engaged in a scaremongering campaign, using imagined non-existent threats to all and every other hobby and pastime they can think of to frighten people into voting 'yes' in the coming ref- erendum for fear we will stop them collecting stamps or making model planes. What can one say to that ex- cept they greatly underestimate the intelligence of the Maltese public. However, since FKNK gas at- tempted to divert attention from the real issue, let me refocus on it by informing that same public of a few facts, which in addition to the moral aspect of destroying our planet's already diminishing wildlife, are direct consequences to every one of us as a result of the prolific scale of hunting in Malta, bearing in mind the 55,962 shotguns registered with the police in Malta. Having experienced 20 years of le- gal and illegal hunting, seven days a week for most of the year, I decided one morning – having been 'shot' awake again by the dawn/pre-dawn crack and volley of shotguns (and further sleep impossible) – to lie there in bed and count the number of shots fired that intruded into my bedroom (and every room of my house). It was a Monday morning and I decided to do this for a whole week, Monday to Monday, counting and recording the date, time the first shot woke me up, and how many shots were fired in exactly one hour. Some were quite difficult to count as many were fired by more than one hunter and frequent vol- leys often merged. In those cases I took into account only the definite individual shots I could distinguish. Below is the result: Monday, 27 October 2014 5.56am – 6.56am 294 shots Tuesday, 28 October 2014 6.07am - 7.07am 161 shots Wednesday, 29 October 2014 5.54am – 6.54am 159 shots Thursday, 30 October 2014 6.03am – 7.03am 144 shots Friday, 31 October 2014 6.05am – 7.05am 54 shots Saturday, 1 November 2014 6.04am – 7.04am 129 shots Sunday, 2 November 2014 6.04am – 7.04am 592 shots (sev- eral 4-5 shot repeats) Monday, 3 November 2014 5.58am – 6.58am 261 shots (sev- eral 4-5 shot repeats) The above amounts to 1,794 shots fired in just eight hours in the Gar- naw Valley and upper Addolorata area, most of which is cultivated land. With an average of 217 to 358 pellets (depending on size or mix) and an average weight of 35 grams of lead per cartridge, this is a considerable amount of lead, just in this one period and location alone. I am not an extremist, merely one who does not consider oneself 'unfortunate' not to enjoy killing defenceless creatures. At 74, I have no personal ambition other than to live in peace in my own home and not have that peace shattered by a multitude of '12 bore alarm clocks' drowning out nature's own dawn chorus every morning, in an orgy of slaughter. I am not a member of that 'un- scrupulous (unspecified) handful from minority groups' but I am a proud member of the 41,494 legally specified, entirely scrupulous group by virtue of what assistance I could render. If you do not vote at all, it will mean in effect a 'yes' – we want to retain spring hunting because if a 51% turnout is not achieved, then spring hunting is here to stay – even if there are more 'No' votes than 'Yes' among the 50% or less who do vote. If this happens then the FKNK, the hunters, the trappers and the government will claim that they have your mandate (permission) for spring hunting to continue and back we'll go to the good old days of 'everything goes' and backroom election deals. Use your vote! If not for yourself and your children – remember the lead poisoning our food and water – then for the hundreds of thousands of birds you will save from slaughter this year and in the future. Clifford John Williams Santa Lucia You often hear people talk about the low inci- dence of enforcement orders issued by MEPA, even though a lot of illegal economic activity is taking place in garages in residential areas all over the island, to the annoyance of residents. Some persons abuse openly while others work behind closed doors because they have been verbally warned, but no further action was taken! Why should neighbours suffer and have to report to MEPA when enforcement officers should be doing their duty? Not everyone has the courage to come out in the open with their objection and when people do report, as a minimum, they get the cold shoulder from the other cowardly neighbours, but more often than not, they are hounded by these 'cowboys' who simply refuse to bow to the rule of law – as was recently revealed in a court case. One also asks what the police are doing about it all. Patrol cars pass by but don't stop even though it is evident that illegal commercial work is taking place in residen- tial areas. Who is finally going to stop these 'cowboys'? Owing to the small size of our country, dwellings have become smaller and walls have become thinner, so there definitely is no place in residential areas for these activities, whether part-time or not. Bullying doesn't take place only in schools, it is also evidenced by people who would go to any lenghts to get what they want, whether legal or not. It is the trend nowadays that many who own a garage, big or small, are tempted to provide a service from these premises. I am not referring to private tuition, nail parlours, art studios etc., even though these should apply for permits. But there are also the various carpenters, sprayers, mechanics etc – all that entails the use of machinery and tools which disturb others around them. It should not be the man in the street who reports these activities. And even when MEPA receives a report, they take their time to show up and thereafter, there is no follow-up action. I suggest that enforcement officers are directed to carry out their duties with much more enthusiam and to clamp down on these abuses. Moreover, when police are patrolling and notice that a workshop has sprouted in a residential area, they should stop and ask for the trading licence, the VAT registration number, etc. Most neighbours will not give evidence even if they are on the verge of a nervous breakdown, out of fear of being bul- lied, so it is law-enforcing officers who have to act. Residential areas are no place for workshops. It is also unfair on those law-abiding skilled workers who have their workshops in indus- trial zones and who pay all their dues – their efforts are being nullified by these irrespon- sible persons who hold a full-time job and work after hours and on week-ends and during holidays. I hope this letter also serves for people who are being coerced into signing a 'no-objec- tion' to applications for permits with a false description of activities to be carried out, to pluck up courage and refuse outright. M.J. Zammit Birkirkara The letter of Carmelo Galea in Malta- Today on Sunday, 8 February, dealt at great length with the behaviour of Ray Sciberras, following the imported bees to their Gozo destination. I ask why all this fuss? Was he committing any crime? His behaviour only emphasises the great worry such a project is generating locally among beekeepers and environmentalists. Such worry is due to: 1. If as some say, the final number of hives may reach thousands, our indig- enous, hard working bee, Apis Mellifera Ruttneri, may face extinction through DNA dilution; 2. If beekeepers, conscious of this latest menace, decide to gear some of the hives to produce drones, (male bees), such hives will not produce any honey, leading to a reduction in genuine Maltese honey on the market, causing its price to soar; 3. Commercial bee breeders do not rely on the limited natural f lora to build up the huge bee population in the hives needed for queen bee rearing. Instead they feed their hives artificially with syrup which the bees may store as 'honey'. If such so called 'honey' finds itself on the market, consumers, quite rightly, will start mistrusting all honey originating in Gozo; 4. Lastly, experience has shown that crossbreeding between A M Ruttneri drones with the docile Italian bee, A M Ligustica, produces a hybrid with an ag- gressive behaviour. The same may happen with French queen bees. Foreign recipi- ents of such fertilised queen bees with an aggressive progeny will have second thoughts in further dealings with Melita Bees. The only positive statement was that Melita Bees does not intend to produce bee nuclei for export. But once the project becomes established will Melita Bees guarantee that the policy will not be revised? Will the Gozo enterprise guar- antee that fully established hives in the project will never be fed sugar syrup, or if fed, such 'honey' will never, inadvertently, appear on the market? However the primary concern for the Maltese beekeepers will always be the danger our indigenous bee will be facing by the project whose primary bee stock is of foreign origin. The Parliamentary Secretary for Animal Rights has dismissed the beekeepers' claims as unjustified. Are they? Beekeepers think that the government should stop any further im- portation of foreign bees and beehives, in the national interest. Michael A. Muscat Via email The Malta Football Association is liable to be in contravention of EU regulations as it prolongs its restriction on the number of foreign footballers a football team can field during games. The MFA is holding on dearly to its mini- mum requirement for eight home-grown players that can be fielded during any given time in a football match. Whilst clubs are allowed unlimited registration of foreign footballers, only three non-Maltese nation- als can be fielded during a football match, in turn even restricting the number of EU citizens in Maltese football. The European Commission's spokesperson for Employment and Social Affairs Com- missioner Vladimir Splidla has however confirmed with MaltaToday that the regula- tion cannot limit the number of EU players within football teams who can play in any given football match, with a small exception for meetings between national teams. "Even if the MFA is not the government, but a sports association, this regulation appears to infringe Community law as inter- preted by the Court Justice in the Bosman ruling and subsequent judgements. "The Commission is going, if necessary, to make inquiries before the national authori- ties in Malta in order to have some clarifica- tions on the issue," spokesperson Katharina von Schnurbein said, confirming statements by Simon Busuttil MEP that the MFA's regu- lations are discriminatory. According to Busuttil, who wrote about the issue in The Times, discrimination on the grounds of nationality in the case of EU footballers is illegal under EU law and what the MFA is doing by allowing unlimited registration of EU players and then denying them the right to play on the field during any given match, is still tantamount to discrimi- nation. Joe Mifsud, the president of the MFA, is committed to retain the association's hold on the number of non-Maltese players that can be fielded on the pitch, and replied to Busuttil's article in The Times. Mifsud be- lieves that limiting the number of foreigners on the field will serve to safeguard Malta's youth football sector. Mifsud has already acknowledged that the MFA could have taken a risk in legislating the way it did, based as it is on the principle of the 'specificity of sports' within the EU Constitution. He believes that this should lead EU decision-makers "to draw a distinc- tion between sports, even when it implies an economic activity, and other economic activities." According to Mifsud, the risk is "well taken" since such rules safeguard clubs' regional identities and their link with the local community, forcing them to use their resources by training young footballers from the locale. Citing the famous Bosman ruling, Busuttil said that in a recent opinion given by the Eu- ropean Court of Justice's Advocate General on the free movement of workers "precludes the application of rules laid down by sports federations under which, in competition matches which they organise, sports clubs may field only a limited number of profes- sional players who are nationals of other member states." Mifsud however has disagreed with Busut- til's opinion, in which he said the MEP had taken "a very simplistic and a too dogmatic approach" by citing the 1995 Bosman ruling. MFA discriminating against European players, says Brussels News • March 06 2005