(Adds Secretariat's reaction)
BirdLife Malta has sent an urgent communication to the European Commission concerning the government’s failure to make available information on this year’s spring hunting season.
The government denied this was the case (see statement below).
In a statement this morning, conservation manager Nicholas Barbara said that every year, BirdLife Malta reported to the European Commission its analysis of the spring hunting derogation in relation to the correct application of the Birds Directive.
Such reports relied on data being made available from government authorities regarding the numbers of registered hunters, birds reported shot and enforcement efforts expended.
This information was promised to BirdLife Malta through the Ornis Committee, it said adding that formal requests for information were also sent to the relevant government officers. The organisation was given the requested information from the Government Veterinary Division and the Armed Forces of Malta, but not from the Malta Environment and Planning Authority, the Derogation Monitoring Board within the Parliamentary Secretariat in charge of hunting matters or the police.
Mr Barbara said:
“We have never had a problem with obtaining such data before, but this year the government is refusing to publish figures, giving the excuse that they are still the subject of discussions between the European Commission and Malta.”
BirdLife Malta insisted that the data itself was not under discussion - facts and figures such as reported catches of turtle doves and quails and police convictions could not be altered subject to the Commission’s comments on the government’s report, it said.
Mr Barbara said that environmental information such as that pertaining to a spring hunting derogation should be in the public domain, and not riddled with bureaucratic procedures aimed at keeping this information from being shared with the public.
He said that in its latest response, the government referred requests for data to a new ‘acting head of the Wild Birds Regulation Unit, that was set up within the Parliamentary Secretariat for Animal Welfare, which had responsibility for compiling hunting derogation reports for the European Commission.
BirdLife Malta executive director Steve Micklewright said:
“We hope that the delay in data provision is not a sign that simple requests such these for information that should be freely available in the public domain will be subject to ministerial interference and blocking tactics.”
GOVERNMENT DENIES HIDING INFORMATION
In a reply, the Parliamentary Secretariat for Animal Rights categorically denied that the government was refusing to public figures related to the spring hunting derogation.
It said that the required information had to be gathered from different entities, including the planning authority and the police, and this was then presented to the Ornis Committee.
The committee, it said, would be issuing the figures during its next meeting.
The government expected BirdLife to be mature and responsible in its statements, the secretariat said.