Arsonists yesterday set fire to a BirdLife Malta billboard at Għadira, targeting trapping, and are believed to have started another fire at the nearby nature reserve.
The police confirmed that inflammable liquid was found next to a billboard, which has just been put up near the Danish Village in Għadira as part of a new anti-trapping campaign.
The lower part of the billboard was damaged and about 75 metres of vegetation, mostly shrubs, was destroyed by fire at the nature reserve, which has been targeted by vandals several times in the past year.
"We were lucky the ground was wet, otherwise the flames would have spread faster and we would have had more serious damage," a BirdLife spokesman said, adding that the watchman noticed the flames and alerted firemen, who were quickly on the scene.
Listing the number of times the reserve was vandalised and its volunteers targeted, Birdlife president Joseph Mangion said the main problem with the prevailing situation was that none of the criminals had been brought to justice to date.
Later in the day, the hunters' federation (FKNK) released a statement accusing the government of financially supporting BirdLife's campaign that it said "provokes bird trappers".
The federation said the government was helping BirdLife by allocating EU funds, obtained by the Malta Environment and Planning Authority, in its campaign against trapping. The campaign, EU Life + Project on Bird Migration and Trapping, will run for two years and aims to raise awareness on Malta's importance for bird migration, with a special focus on finches.
The project will also highlight the negative impact of trapping on Malta's breeding birds and its natural environment. It is 50 per cent funded by the EU Life Unit with additional contributions from Mepa and the project partners.
The hunters' federation said that last year it had asked the Rural Affairs Ministry whether it was involved in the deal. The ministry had denied any involvement but the federation said it recently found out that the funds were obtained by Mepa, which fell under the ministry's responsibility.
The federation is now questioning whether the government has decided to waste taxpayers' money in this way: "The same government that has been withholding refunds owed to the FKNK since 2007".
It also hit out at the EU, which "opts to use taxpayers' funds to abolish yet another Maltese traditional socio-cultural passion - trapping".
Mepa denied that it had financially contributed towards the two-year BirdLife campaign.
It said that while it acknowledged that it was willing to support the project, it had specifically requested BirdLife to directly involve key stakeholders such as the hunters' federation and other associations that represent trappers in the project activities as a condition for Mepa sponsorship. Once such condition was not met, Mepa said it did not enter into any formal commitment with BirdLife to sponsor the project.