Gaia, Din l-Art Helwa, Nature Trust (Malta), Friends of the Earth (Malta), Ramblers Association and BirdLife Malta yesterday urged the Malta Labour Party to take a clear stand against spring hunting in the Maltese islands. The non-governmental organisations (NGOs) said the issue was a matter of nature conservation and Malta's international image’, and not a political one. It is the duty of all political parties in Malta to unite on such environmental issues for our common heritage, the NGOs said.

Spring hunting is not allowed in the European Union in order to protect wild birds when they are about to reproduce in their breeding grounds in Europe, the NGOs said. In spite of the ongoing infringement procedure opened by the European Commission, the government had opened another spring hunting season in 2007, a fourth consecutive breech of the EU Birds Directive since Malta joined the EU. However, following the illegal killing of many protected birds, the government had decided to abruptly end the spring hunting season 10 days before it originally planned to.

The NGOs welcomed this positive decision and said that this should be the end of spring hunting and trapping in Malta forever. “We appeal to all political parties to respect the EU bird protection law, show their commitment to protect birds before they are about to reproduce and not risk allowing our country’s international image to deteriorate any further,” the NGOs concluded.