Foreigners policing the Maltese countryside

We refer to the article Foreign Birdwatchers Step Up Security (August 31).

The Committee Against Birds’ Slaughter (CABS) president Heinz Schwarze said that teams, made up of foreigners, will roam the Maltese countryside accompanied by locally-hired security guards and armed with video cameras to prevent the escalation of violence. It appears, then, that Mr Schwarze appreciates that violence has escalated since CABS’s first visit here. One should also note that, last year, the Federation for Hunting and Conservation – Malta (FKNK) offered to pay for police “extras” to accompany any CABS individual or group on any outing, an offer CABS refused.

We ask the Police Commissioner whether he is aware that CABS are taking over policing in Malta since they are partly coming to ensure that “the September afternoon hunting ban is complied with”, which is surely the job of the Malta Police. We ask Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi and Tourism Parliamentary Secretary Mario de Marco whether they are aware that CABS “will be posing as tourists” to identify and report illegal trapping installations. We also ask Dr Gonzi and Dr de Marco whether they are aware of CABS’ local partners, namely BirdLife Malta, Nature Trust and International Animal Rescue local sector. We ask whether they know what happened last year when CABS tried to do the same in Cyprus?

Mr Schwarze added that “CABS was only concerned with curbing illegal bird shooting and trapping and claims that it was seeking a total ban on hunting in Malta were ‘absolutely false.”. Unfortunately for the CABS president, the facts are not as he depicts them.

Before CABS changed the wording, their website read as follows: “CABS is firmly committed to putting an end to the killing and trapping of migrant birds on Malta”. Now the word “illegal” has been added before the word “killing”. However, CABS forgot to change also their name to “Committee Against Illegal Bird Slaughter”.

Mr Schwarze should not forget that, in September 2008, he “demanded” of the Maltese Prime Minister that he stop all hunting immediately and ban it until October 15. David Conlin, the CABS Malta operations manager, had once petitioned the EU Commission and the European Parliament “not to relent until Malta is a bird hunting-free zone”. Furthermore, CABS officials Axel Hirschfeld and Mr Conlin, had stated that “our organisation will do its utmost to ensure that the turtle dove and the common quail are removed as huntable species from Appendix II of the Birds Directive” (May 2, 2008).

The truth that should be obvious is that all these declarations together amount to seeking a total ban on Malta’s hunting and trapping. We repeat our support to initiatives against illegalities in collaboration with the police. However, we condemn the tactics of an organisation whose ultimate goal is clearly the end of hunting and trapping on Malta.