Steve Micklewright, BirdLife Malta’s new executive director, who has yet to experience his first spring in Malta, takes the Environment Ministry to task for stating that the spring hunting of turtle dove in Malta does not “in any manner influence the population trends of turtle dove elsewhere in Europe”, saying this is simply nonsense.
Claiming that the conservation status of the turtle dove is “unfavourable” in order to discredit Malta’s application of the spring hunting derogation, he fails to quote any reference confirming his false statement.
The turtle dove, according to the classification of BirdLife International, of which BirdLife Malta is a partner, states: “This species has an extremely large range and hence does not approach the thresholds for Vulnerable under the range size criterion. Despite the fact that the population trend appears to be decreasing, the decline is not believed to be sufficiently rapid to approach the thresholds for Vulnerable under the population trend criterion. The population size is extremely large and hence does not approach the thresholds for Vulnerable under the population size criterion; for these reasons the species is evaluated as Least Concern.”
If Micklewright were to bother with the European Court of Justice’s ruling that pronounced derogation possible, he would notice that the same “least concern” classification was also referred to in the judgment that confirmed the cardinal principle for permitting derogation, namely that of no “satisfactory solution”.
The court’s irrevocable verdict states: “The condition that there be no other satisfactory solution, laid down in article 9 (1) of the directive, should, in principle, be considered met”.
A quote from the European Commission’s own Guide to Sustainable Hunting that discredits his nonsense about derogation is indeed in place:
“It should be stressed that it rests with the EU Court of Justice to provide definitive interpretation of a directive. Therefore, the guidance provided will need to evolve in line with any emerging jurisprudence on this subject. The guide intends to fully respect the existing case law of the court, which is already quite extensive. This determines aspects of the guide, especially where clear positions have already been established by the court.”
Does Micklewright doubt the “clear position” established by the court in the case of Malta’s spring hunting derogation in the same manner he discredits the ministry’s statement? If so, clearly BirdLife Malta has only just employed a new broom, which is yet another non-starter.