I was forced into the thick of it, way back in 1994, when as a newly appointed member of the Authority of Review, I was asked to join a Review Panel to decide on a number of contestations on the then newly published regulations protecting birds and wild rabbit in 1993.
None of us were directly involved (for or against) in this hot issue, but with our technical and scientific backgrounds, as well as starting from an unbiased perspective, we were considered as qualified arbitrators. Till then, I was not particularly for or against hunting or trapping. As an environmental scientist, I appreciated the need to protect all forms of life, but I could also sense the cultural and social dimensions of this national issue in an island then teeming with registered hunters and trappers.
Over the next two years, the Authority of Review held no fewer than 65 meetings with representatives from both sides of the great divide, including the FKNK and Birdlife, as well as foreign experts representing the opposing lobbies. During these seemingly unending interviews, some personalities managed to confound and then shake up my rather stereotyped perceptions of the brutish hunters and the tree huggers.
I distinctly remember how gentle and polite, as well as balanced and rational, people like Joe Perici Calascione of the FKNK managed to come across. He was, in fact, often assisted by Manuel Mallia, who was legally helping the hunting lobby and who always seemed meticulously exact in his polished arguments.
I will vote ‘no’ for a simpler and more direct reason. To help bring Malta one step closer to the future
But, as the meetings went on and on, I started to sense that what we were discussing was a self-evident conclusion whose future will come. In a world where biodiversity is nose-diving due to human’s increasing impact on the planet’s life supporting systems, but where respect for all forms of life was gaining ground in at least some sectors of society, the justification of bird killing as a sport was simply not holding water anymore.
It was true that some (perhaps most?) hunters and trappers exhibited a certain ‘respect towards nature’ in their own way. It was also true that grandpa in the village square, lovingly holding a caged finch under his armpit, loved his feathered friend almost as much as he loved his wife and children. But this was clearly a ‘misguided’ form of love and respect towards living forms.
The future must surely come, when our feathered companions, as well as other forms of life, will no longer be respected through being killed or slaved as a sport. Such respect and love will be more fully expressed by our enjoyment of their company in the wild and natural environment.
The report and conclusions of the Authority of Review did little to bring such future closer to Maltese society. But perhaps the referendum to abolish spring hunting in Malta will. In any case, even if the ‘yes’ vote will win the day, I have no doubt that all forms of killing for sport and as a pastime will end, some day.
After all, so many past human practices and forms of behaviour once held sacrosanct had been eventually buried in our twilight barbaric past. I am sure that the same will happen to bird trapping and hunting, even in Malta. The future will come, maybe rather slowly, but surely.
I am sometimes astonished at the relatively richer bird biodiversity in other countries, even in urban areas. I have seen some turtle doves mixing with pigeons while they pick up bits of food from the ground in several village squares, such as in the south of France. Certainly I can hear the ‘yes’ camp yelling that therefore such birds are in no need of protection. What a pathetic argument!
As the hunting referendum looms near, we will be bombarded with arguments from all sides. These will include the nationalistic lingo, such as: we should not allow foreigners to interfere in our own affairs; or that this type of sport killing is not the main reason for the decline in bird biodiversity; or that Malta’s ‘taking’ of such migratory bird populations is insignificantly small.
The other side will argue that trappers and hunters have taken over what is left of our countryside, or that the hunting lobby is in cohort with the politicians, both assertions being mere exaggerations.
I will vote ‘no’ for a simpler and more direct reason. To help bring Malta one step closer to the future.
Prof. Victor Axiak is a former member of the Church Environment Commission.