Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/661117
14 THERE is an old saying – too well- known to bother repeating in full – that starts: "if at first you don't succeed…" Certainly the campaign to abolish spring hunting did not succeed last year… So will the organisers stick to the time-honoured script, and "try, try, try again?" On the steps of Castille some two weeks ago, BirldLife president Da- ryll Grima suggested they might. At a glance, however, the prospects do not look rosy for success a second time round. Last year's referendum result seemed to cement the perception that – for all the noise made by vocal environmentalists – their ac- tual concerns are not widely shared among the electorate. Many now view the matter as having been 'settled' democratically… and thus placed out of reach. And with all the political controversy unfolding in the background, it also feels as though the critical momentum has been lost. Is it such a good idea to 'try again' in that kind of scenario? Mark Sul- tana, BLM chief executive, seems to think so. "Yours are valid comments; but to be clear, the referendum was to decide whether Malta should retain the option to derogate from the Birds Directive. The responsibility of whether to actually derogate or not still remains in the hands of the government. With the referendum, the people gave the government the opportunity to decide: but it didn't tell the government to open the spring hunting season each year. It just didn't remove the deroga- tion…" All the same, the government is within its rights to interpret the result as a go-ahead for this year's season… "I don't think that's the only inter- pretation. I still think the referen- dum sent a bit of a message to the government. In fact when Joseph Muscat spoke after the result, he de- scribed it as a 'close shave'. So he got the message. The message was that we Maltese do care when it comes to the environment. So please take note..." During the campaign, much em- phasis was placed on the conserva- tion status of the two species con- cerned: in particular turtle dove… which has since been reclassified as endangered by the United Nations' conservation agency. "It was very obvious back then, to people who have been studying the situation for years, that the turtle dove was in decline. Since then, this knowledge has been stamped and certified by what is known as the IUCN. So what we are saying now is that, with this certification prov- ing that the turtle dove is an endan- gered species, how can the govern- ment still feel comfortable opening a spring hunting season this year, especially for turtle dove?" But isn't that why the quotas for turtle dove have been reduced to 5,000? "Yes, for sure. Whether it will have an impact or not is another ques- tion. I beg to think differently, be- cause we have our reservations on whether the hunters' declarations are correct. In fact, if you look at the figures for the last five years, hunt- ers have never caught more than 5,000. My guess is that the govern- ment looked at what was declared in those years, and concluded that by setting the quota at 5,000, it would not rock the boat, because the situ- ation would remain exactly the same…" Even taking the hunters' own (du- bious) estimates on board, the fig- ures do not add up. "From a conservation point view, if we take the hunters' figures as correct, I would say that this sea- son will impact the turtle dove the same way it impacted it in the past. It's not really reducing the number of birds killed. The reality, however, is that Malta's system of recording hunters' catches – whereby hunters report by SMS each bird taken – is a fallacy. The moment the season is open, there is no one who can put hand on heart and tell us exactly how many birds have been shot. It is pretty much impossible to do. So as far as I am concerned, the quota reduction is a fallacy, too." If the hunters' declarations are un- trustworthy, there are always the es- timates of conservation groups such as CABS and BirdLife itself. How many birds does BLM estimate to be killed each year in spring? "Let's make a distinction between illegalities, and the hunting of turtles dove: which, in the eyes of Maltese law, is at the moment legal. Basi- cally, from what we see in the coun- tryside, there are a number of points to mention. One, it's very difficult to calculate or estimate how many are killed. So you really do have to rely on the hunters… and I, for one, have my doubts. Two, we also realise how difficult it is to enforce the laws. Looking at it holistically: in Malta, all aspects of environmental law en- forcement fall under MEPA… with the miraculous exception of birds. Birds fall under the Wild Birds Regulation Unit, which in turn falls under the parliamentary secretariat for animal welfare …" The same secretariat was also fa- mously instrumental in identifying a legal 'loophole' to also reopen trap- ping, after this had been duly phased out. Given that its remit is actually to protect animals, rather than facil- itate their capture or destruction… doesn't this give us an indication of how low animal welfare really is on the scale of government priorities? Sultana breaks into a laugh. "Let me put it this way: the joke we have at the moment is that it's like hav- ing Count Dracula in charge of the blood-bank. It defeats the whole purpose of having a directorate for animal rights. The idea itself is bril- liant: to have a flagbearer of animal rights at Cabinet level. But there is also the responsibility to safe- guard those rights. The secretariat might be doing a good job in other areas… but when it comes to wild birds, we are very, very far from ad- equate enforcement levels. If any- thing, it should be the Animal Wel- fare secretariat pushing the Police Commissioner to create a Wildlife Crimes Unit..." Enforcement shouldn't be in the hands of the WBRU, he carries on, even to avoid conflicts of interest. "How can the same people who ap- ply a derogation, also enforce it? It should fall to someone else to say whether that derogation is being ap- plied correctly or not. And I won't go into the issue of having hunters and trappers employed as enforcers. Of course, they have every right to be employed there. But during the hunting and trapping season… do they take days off to go and hunt or trap? Or do they take overtime to ensure that the laws are being properly enforced? Should I be ask- ing these questions? Ideally, no, be- cause there shouldn't be any doubt. So why is the WBRU creating these doubts?" This same confusion of roles seems to manifest itself in other areas, too. "Our disappointment is when you see an exhibition pro- moting taxidermy, organised by two people who were found guilty of taxidermy infringements, and the minister has no problem in stand- ing there, shoulder to shoulder with them, and inaugurating the exhibi- tion… in Buskett, a Natura 2000 site! Just to rub more salt into the wound. This is the situation we have at the moment. And when we criti- cise it, we are called 'extremists'…" Another issue concerns recent legislation which, on closer scruti- ny, turns out to be unenforceable in practice. "One very clear example is the law regulating taxidermy. On one hand we have a law making tax- idermy legal for whoever registers; on the other hand, there is a limit of 30 birds… below which you don't have to register. How on earth is an- yone going to determine how many birds in a taxidermy collection were the work of one person in a year? If the police find 30 carcasses in a raid, the owner could say: 'that's all I shot this year, and that's all I am going to use for taxidermy purposes." If they find 45, he might say: '15 are mine, 30 are for my son.' The law has been left wide open…" But surely if a raid yields a collec- tion of more than 30 stuffed birds, the enforcers would be able to take action…? "Not even, no. Because the law only regulates the process of taxi- dermy itself. It does not go into pos- session. BirdLife Malta will be tak- ing a stance and trying to be more proactive, by drawing up a draft of how we believe the law should be worded. We don't want to only criticise each change as it is made… even if there is much to criticise. The bottom line, to go back to the issue of enforcement, is… it's very difficult. So hats off to the police, who do their best. The truth, how- ever, is that 'their best' is not good enough…" Some years back there was talk of the need to beef up the Administra- tive Law Enforcement department in proportion with the task of moni- toring some 14,000 hunters and trappers all over the countryside. At the time, the number of licences is- sued was increasing, while the ALE remained static. Has any of that changed? "Not really. The ratio of police to hunters is still the same. The dif- ficulty is, we are not talking about traffic management here: where you know exactly where the roads are, how many cars pass, and can allocate police accordingly. We're talking about the environment of Malta, where the landscape doesn't help: there are slopes, walls, private property, and some areas are al- most inaccessible. It's also a migra- tion season, so you can't tell exactly when the birds are really going to pass over in large numbers, or from which direction, and in which areas. Then you have the laws the way they are, which are difficult to en- force anyway." Even if enforcement could be im- proved, it only deals with illegalities. The one issue that can't be handled by officers in the field is whether the quotas are being respected. That has to wait till the end of the season, and relies on hunters' declarations anyway. Sultana has made no secret of his scepticism. Why is he so con- vinced they are under-declaring?" "When we are in the field, we do two types of count. We count how many shots we hear – which doesn't mean a bird has been killed – we count how many birds we saw, Interview By Raphael Vassallo maltatoday, SUNDAY, 3 APRIL 2016 With IUCN certification proving that the turtle dove is an endangered species, how can the government still feel comfortable opening a spring hunting season this year? ENDANGERED We should not be afraid of calling another referendum. I am not saying we're going there, or not going there… but there is the possibility of going back to the people to decide REFERENDUM Keeping all options open