The term conservation is applied to recreational hunting, since this practice results in definite hands-on conservation and long-term benefits for society in general. Conservation linked to those that participate in the practice of hunting provides benefits to indigenous wildlife populations, migratory birds, our rural landscape and to rural communities. A number of international environmental conventions and organisations recognise that the regulated sustainable use of wildlife through hunting provides economic incentives that contribute to biodiversity conservation and cultural sustainability.

Hunting-derived economic activities such as the purchasing of land for hunting, the planting of trees and the cultivation of land, serve to protect wildlife habitats and cultural practices from the damaging impacts of alternative land use practices, especially at a time when such activities place an additional burden on human and biological communities subject to climatic and other environmental stressors. Conservation through hunting, given its socio-economic and cultural contributions to local communities, has the potential to contribute to human adaptation in the changing world.

With many natural habitats existing on privately owned land and governments unable to afford to enforce or subsidise the conservation of these privately owned areas, the hunters' voluntary management is playing an increasingly important role in the conservation of our biodiversity. The government should consider adopting the type of conservation policies that are encouraged abroad. Such policies, based on positive incentives, are widely adopted in the UK, Germany and other EU countries but tend to be ignored in Malta.

It seems the only form of conservation that interests our government is that dictated by Birdlife Malta. Does the fact that hunters hunt birds that are sustainable according to EU directives make them any less "conservationist?" It seems only Malta's government reasons this way.