The comment by Birdlife Malta president Joe Mangion, that “the authorities cannot try to please everyone all the time” (August 30), could not be more appropriate when describing the trapping debacle created by Government to accommodate Birdlife Malta at the expense of Malta’s finch trappers.

According to your report of March 7, 2009, the European Commission Representation in Malta stated: “Under the Accession Treaty, trapping of certain bird species (seven species of finches) was permitted until the end of December 2008. Following the expiry of this period under the Treaty, Malta can, along with all other member states, apply a derogation to permit trapping to continue”.

After December 2008, apart from never even attempting to apply derogation for the trapping of the seven finch species, even though it has been given the material and offered assistance to do so, the Government endorsed a Life+ EU project prepared by Birdlife Malta meant to “educate” trappers on their purported harm to biodiversity by “changing their cultural attitudes to trapping”.

This initiative, funded to the tune of €315,794 by the EU and locally, states as one of its expected results: “Some 90 per cent of trappers to be aware of the law on trapping of wild songbirds, and 70 per cent to respect the law by the project end”.

Clearly with the Government’s backing, Birdlife’s insistence that trapping should be banned could not have been accommodated any better since before the commencement of the project in January 2009 there was no finch trapping and subsequently no law for the 4,000 finch trappers to be aware of or to respect.

Indeed the authorities cannot try to please everyone all the time.

As a finch trapper I can say the Government has not even tried to please me or my kind, even embarked on a half-baked attempt at captive-breeding finches without, at least, informing or involving the affected party, the trappers.

Even the EU requisite, in this instance, has got it miserably wrong; captive-breeding is definitely not an alternative to trapping.

Its pre-accession guarantees to trappers on the continuance of our practices were crystal clear and the possibility to derogate clearly defined by the Commission, yet the approval of funding for the sham project to educate trappers was of more importance.

I hope Birdlife spends this easily earned money wisely while blessing this Government for pleasing it.

So far, though the project has long ended, trappers have yet to see how Birdlife intends using these funds to change our cultural attitudes that define a way of life. Trappers, who were not involved and consulted, have been turned into criminals overnight by the stroke of a pen.