Another referendum on spring hunting, like the 2015 one, is definitely still on the table, but it will not be happening in the very near future, CEO of BirdLife Malta Mark Sultana said.
Celebrating Birdlife Malta’s 60th anniversary since its founding in 1962 as the Malta Ornithological Society, The Malta Independent on Sunday spoke with Sultana on the country’s situation and stance on spring hunting, the various illegalities, the protection of birds as well as the Maltese attitudes on these rampant issues.
The 2015 referendum on spring hunting of quail and turtle doves began with a petition to ban spring hunting, which was initiated by the Coalition for the Abolition of Spring Hunting, made up of several NGOs such as BirdLife Malta, the Coalition for Animal Rights, the Democratic Alternative, Din l-Art Ħelwa, Flimkien għal Ambjent Aħjar, Friends of the Earth, the Gaia Foundation, Greenhouse, International Animal Rescue Malta, the Malta Organic Agriculture Movement, Moviment Graffitti, Nature Trust, the Ramblers Association Malta and Youth for the Environment. With the signing of 45,000 people, the petition led to a referendum.
The historic referendum was decided on a thin margin, with just 2,220 more votes deciding against the ban out of a total of 250,648 votes cast. The “yes” camp had won 50.4% of the vote thanks to a strong showing for the pro-hunting contingent in Gozo.
BirdLife had said earlier this year that it is willing to take court action against the government if it allows for the hunting for turtle doves to resume this spring, reopening the discussion about yet another referendum on hunting.
Asked if there is a tentative for another referendum in the works, Sultana said that he will never deny that a referendum is an option, as it in fact still is.
“The feeling that we have from the people is that we should do another one. Why don’t we do one immediately? For many reasons… we need a lot of resources and we know how we lost the previous one. We need to be certain this time round that we will win it and therefore we cannot see it happening in the very near future,” Sultana said.
He said that discussions for another referendum would happen after seeing the outcomes of several court cases by the European Union against Malta to close the spring hunting season.
Sultana spoke about the biggest problem in the country when it comes to nature, which is that we are losing our national footprint “rapidly and indiscriminately.” He said that although we believe that nature should thrive, there is also a social cause in it – being that people look for nature to relax and enjoy down-time in natural areas.
“If we remove nature, we are harming both the habitats as well as the people who need these places. Our main focus along with other NGOs is to work together to see how to safeguard these nature reserves, such as the Natura 2000 sites,” Sultana said.
News of a tender issued by government of a value of €300,000 for the purpose of scientific bird-ringing services, only to be cancelled a few days later, was confirmed by Sultana who said that BirdLife, who was supposed to be directly involved in the research, was not even informed about it.
“Government created a gimmick scientific research derogation to allow trappers to continue trapping finches justifying it as a scientific study. They issued a tender to call for foreign ringers to come over to Malta and trap birds. They put out a call for scientists to apply for a project which is not at all scientific,” Sultana said.
Sultana said that the tender was cancelled as there were no applications. He added that government used it as a front to continue to allow trappers to catch birds, but the European Union saw through the “gimmick” and is challenging it in court.
“What Malta is trying to do is to fool the EU by telling them that they are collecting data about the birds by ringing them, when in reality they would be trapping finches despite the courts already declaring it as illegal,” Sultana said. He added that while it is illegal, it also does not make sense to have another ringing scheme on the already existing one, where BirdLife is ringing birds for actual scientific research.
“BirdLife would have been the one to supply the rings to this supposed ringing scheme, but we were not even told about it,” he said.
Sultana was asked about projects BirdLife is working on to continue creating awareness in favour of protection of birds. He said that the organisation has managed two projects which were funded by the European Union to gather further scientific data to protect birds, as well as their habitats.
“A few years ago, we presented to the Cabinet our studies and it resulted into creating the first marine SPAs (special protection areas) around Malta and Gozo. They are areas which are now earmarked for a management plan, and so every site has a management plan,” he said.
Sultana said that the Environment and Resources Authority’s (ERA) job is to ensure the implementation of these management plans, such as those for the Natura 2000 sites.
Another project, which has been in practice for a number of years, is the ringing scheme, a very important scientific study where birds are ringed individually and biometrics are taken so that data about certain birds can be used for further studies with relation to climate change and migration patterns, Sultana explained.
“It is important to note the achievements we have done as an NGO for the past 60 years and not take them for granted. We have realized also how relevant BirdLife Malta still is. We are still relevant in managing habitats, in the educational system, in monitoring bird migration both in scientific and hunting and trapping activities,” Sultana added.
He said that the NGO is still important as an advocate to make sure decisions are taken with the right reasoning.
“Environment has become more and more of a talking point, and while there are many illegalities and problems, I think we have a lot of hope in the general public and we can only shudder at the thought of us, as an NGO, not being around,” Sultana concluded.