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Matthew Vella
Malta has not yet transposed provisions of the EU’s Birds Directive that would have seen the end of the trapping season for finches on the 31 January. A spokesperson for the Environment Commissioner Stavros Dimas said: “the sooner the Maltese comply fully with the Directive, the better.”
Malta is expected to amend its hunting laws to have the trapping season, which at present runs from 1 October to 10 April, close on 31 January. Hunting at sea, which usually runs to the last day of February, will also have to stop by 31 January.
A spokesperson for the ministry of the environment said that discussions on the new regulations are “still ongoing”.
Included in the regulations is the condition that boats used for hunting at sea can only have engines which run at a maximum speed of 18 kilometres an hour.
Spokesperson Barbara Helfferich said the Maltese had a general obligation to comply with the requirements under the Birds Directive, the European law which bans hunting and trapping in spring, and a specific obligation concerning finch trapping, as set out under the transitional agreement.
“The amendments proposed to the existing Maltese laws seem to be a step in that direction,” Helfferich said, who added that the Commission was in contact with the Maltese authorities to ensure their obligations are fully complied with.
Environmental NGOs are questioning the wording of one of the articles in the proposed law, where the Maltese state automatically avails itself of article 9 of the Birds Directive, the clause allowing states to derogate from the ban on spring hunting.
Member states can derogate from the ban on spring hunting if they can justify their reasons for doing so.
The Commission has told MaltaToday the derogation can only be given under “strict criteria”, which includes an annual report sent to the Commission that justifies the derogation.
“On the basis of information available to it, the Commission shall at all times ensure that the consequences of these derogations are not incompatible with the Directive. If it has reason to suspect that the Directive’s objectives are not being fulfilled, the Commission can take the matter up with the Member State in question,” Helfferich said.
Malta currently enjoys a derogation allowing the hunting for turtle dove and quail in spring. The future of the derogation depends on whether the Commission will be satisfied with Malta’s conviction that its hunting numbers will remain sustainable.
But its report presented to the Commission in November to justify the spring hunting derogation was met with scepticism: “If only 10,000 birds are being shot, the Maltese must be really bad shooters,” a spokesperson for Dimas had told this newspaper.
The Birds Directive
The EU law concerning wild birds has identified 194 species in need of special conservation measures. The law requires member states to:
1. Designate Special Protection Areas (SPAs) for these threatened species and all migratory bird species. These SPAs form part of the EU’s Natura 2000 network of protected areas.
2. Ban activities that directly threaten birds, such as the deliberate killing or capture of birds, the destruction of their nests and taking of their eggs, and associated activities such as trading (with a few exceptions).
3. Limit the number of bird species that can be hunted, and the periods in which they can be hunted to protect them during periods of greatest vulnerability, such as the return migration to the nesting areas, reproduction and the raising of chicks.
mvella@mediatoday.com.mt
Links:
http://europa.eu.int/comm/environment
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