The Maltese are among the top European citizens who believe that the Birds and Habitats Directives are very effective.
Out of the 809 Maltese respondents participating in an open public consultation on the effectiveness of these directives, 63% positively responded to the European Commission’s survey. Malta came second, right after Czech Republic with a total of 82%. This makes the Maltese the second population which feels most satisfied with the Birds and Habitat Directives.
The European Commission carried out an open public consultation on the Birds and Habitats Directives between April and July 2015. The consultation was undertaken as part of the wider process to collect evidence and opinion to feed into an overall ‘Fitness Check’ on the two Directives, designed to assess whether the current regulatory framework is proportionate and fit for purpose, and how well the Directives are achieving their objectives.
The consultation generated an unprecedented level of interest with participants responding from all 28 EU countries and beyond. In total, 552,472 replies were submitted. To date, this is the largest response received by the Commission to an on-line consultation.
The greatest number of replies came from participants in Germany and the United Kingdom with each casting more than 100,000 replies.
The vast majority of replies, around 545,000 came from individuals. 4,600 replies were received from organisations, of which over half 2,300 replies came from businesses.
The Swedes feel that the Directives so far have been ineffective with 54% marking the highest percentage of respondents who ticked the “Not at all effective” box.
As to the question of how the European people feel about the Directives’ effectiveness to protect biodiversity, 89% of the Maltese believe this is very effective. Hungary leads the statistic with 94%.
The report makes a particular reference to the responses by the Maltese participants.
“Most of the comments on Malta refer to the hunting of birds,” the report notes.
“Thanks to the Nature Directives, Malta now has a larger network of protected areas, Natura 2000, covering 14% of its land and 2% of its marine sites. In Malta, the Birds and Habitats Directives have been important in developing sustainable hunting practices and have led to changes in hunting conditions”, it added.