Editorial

Hunters and trappers know they are a minority. Yet, their representatives speak and behave as if they are a majority, nay, as if they are the ones that run the country.

The public statement issued over the weekend by the Federation for Hunting and Conservation (FKNK) was an exercise in intolerance and another reason why the government should tread very carefully when dealing with the delicate issue of hunting and trapping in Malta. To use an appropriate expression, it has to stop running with the hare and hunting with the hounds. The government's duty is neither to side with extremist environmentalists/ ornithologists nor to promote the cause of arrogant hunters/trappers, the ones who deem hunting laws being enacted solely to be broken.

Now that Malta forms part of a larger bloc, the government has no option but to ensure that what it agreed to when joining the European Union is implemented, to the letter and without resorting to antics only meant to gain time, in the process raising hopes it knows cannot be met. If spring hunting has to end at some point, the Maltese people, including hunters and trappers, need to be told so unequivocally, whether or not a general election is round the corner. Otherwise, tensions will continue to rise and the FKNK's latest statement does not bode well at all in that sense.

What is more important for the party in government, losing a few votes or avoiding unnecessary tension between different sectors of society? The Nationalist Party may think it can strike a balance and have the best of both worlds. Its own elements entrusted with the country's administration know full well life is not as easy as that.

There has to be straight talk. For example, hunters need to be told that it is not about somebody wanting to abolish any traditions but about rules and regulations being respected.

There is therefore no need for the FKNK to use certain unsavoury expletives, such as anybody having to walk "over a lot of dead bodies".

Neither is it fair for the federation to insinuate that at the Environment Ministry there are "the usual infiltrated BirdLife friends". Environmentalists and ornithologists have a right to work and put their message across as much as hunters and trappers, and anybody else, for that matter, do. The federation must know there are members of Parliament and also of Cabinet who are hunters. They may be a minority but their voice is still heard in high places and their influence in the corridors of power cannot be ignored.

It is using the power of persuasion and negotiation the FKNK should resort to and fully exploit rather than adopt confrontational stands. Such negative attitude can only lead to self-inflicted harm. The people of this country, hunters and trappers included, are relieved that the almost daily confrontations of the past on practically every subject under the sun are no more.

Thus, the way forward cannot be in line with the spirit of the public statement issued by the FKNK over the weekend. That must also be embarrassing to the government, the support and collaboration of which the hunters need if they are to put their cause across efficiently and successfully. Hunters can surely come up with valid arguments to defend their cause and so there is no need for invective.

In order to make inroads, there needs to be a common front which would demonstrate to Brussels that the arguments being made are acceptable to all and that the proposals would indeed be beneficial to the island's ecological system.