An international seminar being held by Birdlife on November 11 is being organised to “unfairly and unjustly tarnish Malta and the Maltese internationally”, the Federation for Hunting and Conservation said.
In a statement, the FKNK said it was informed that the seminar, to be held at St James Cavalier, was part of the LIFE+ EU funded anti-finch trapping project, the aim of which was to abolish the traditional socio-cultural passion of finch-capturing practised by thousands of Maltese.
It said it was aware that the government, through MEPA, had agreed to contribute €30,000 towards the project, on condition that trappers participated.
“As far as can be ascertained, this condition has not been met, and MEPA has, therefore, refused to pay up,” the FKNK said.
It said that for this reason, it refused an invitation to participate in the seminar, as it would have done had Birdlife’s intentions had been genuine.
FKNK asked its trapper members who could be approached by Birdlife on this issue to first contact it before replying.
The federation said that for the first time in the history of the Maltese islands, the Maltese traditional socio-cultural passion of finch-capturing practised by thousands of enthusiasts was not permitted this autumn.
The government took this step, notwithstanding the fact that even the EU accession treaty specified that finch-capturing could continue in a limited form after December 31, 2008, and that the European Commission representation in Malta last March publicly declared that Malta could, along with all other member states, apply a derogation to permit trapping to continue.
The several political and official promises and guarantees made by the government in writing to every individual trapper were also ignored.
“Why should then both the EU Commission and the Malta government, which makes the final decision about which Life+ projects are selected in Malta, contribute public funds to abolish a practice that the same government has opted not to permit this year anyway, despite the fact that EU regulations permit it through the application of a derogation?
“And, to add insult to injury, Malta's main negotiator over hunting and trapping in the run-up to EU membership is also involved in this campaign against trapping,” it said.
The FKNK said that, just as it did in the case of traditional spring-hunting, it would step up its efforts in favour of traditional and sustainable finch-capturing.