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Last Wednesday’s show of force by the hunters’ lobby may dent the government’s plan to implement the Birds Directive but it will do nothing to change the inevitable – that the agreement between the Maltese government and the European Union will lead to the end of trapping by 2008 and the very probable abolition of spring hunting.
As Lino Farrugia, the secretary general of the Federation of Hunters, Trappers and Conservationists (FKNK) addressed an angry crowd of hunters in Rabat, he failed to point out that in the whole of the EU, spring hunting no longer exists and trapping is exclusive only to Malta.
Though he is right to say that the Maltese government was unfaithful when it suggested that it would keep the hunting and trapping traditions in place, his confrontational rhetoric will only buy his followers some extra time but not a green card for the future.
To make matters worse, since accession, the Nature Unit of the EU’s Directorate General of Environment have been inundated with complaints and reports about illegal hunting and the gunning down of what the technocrats prefer to describe as Annex 1 species.
The endless list of abuses involving the slaughter of eagles, falcons, owls and other endangered birds has led the European Commission to treat Malta’s demand for an exemption or derogation on shooting of turtle dove (gamiem) and quail (summien), with suspicion.
Malta was supposed to present a detailed report on the numbers shot and was hopeful that a revelation of the small numbers gunned down in Spring would lead the EU to tolerate hunting in Spring.
Unfortunately for the government, the whole scenario has been overshadowed by continuous reports of disregard for protected birds.
Instead of kicking the ball into the hunters’ court, the government has opted for doing and saying nothing, after being mortified by a police memo ordering officers not to take immediately arraign hunters and trappers over breaches of the recently changed regulations.
Lino Farrugia continues to serve as the firefighter for the hunters lobby. He is ably assisted by the acceptable face of hunters, Joe Perici Calascione and Saviour Buttigieg. Though he failed to make a mark at the European Parliamentary elections, he still garners wide support with hunters and remains a reference point for them.
His intolerance for the media is notorious, ordering a boycott of sister newspaper Illum when the newspaper revealed the decisions of an Ornis committee meeting – with the result that the boycott fuelled more interest in the Maltese Sunday.
Yet, with a difference to the mid-nineties, Farrugia is in a fix. In 1995 he lashed out at junior minister Stanley Zammit and waged war on the political parties. Zammit, a committed environmentalist, had trimmed the Spring season for hunting and banned trapping. Farrugia terrorized the parties and cornered them to commit themselves to keep hunting and trapping untouched.
He went so far that it is reported he personally wrote the draft for the then PN secretary general Lawrence Gonzi to simply sign and print out on the PN’s letterhead. In that letter signed in 1998, Dr Gonzi promised that nothing would be changed and the hunters and trappers would not lose any of their privileges.
Before 2003 before the national election, the government changed little – indeed it changed the law to allow 18-year-olds down from 21, to carry a shotgun and for hunters to shoot from countryside roads. It meekly increased fines for killing specially protected species and supposedly froze trapping applications. But reports linger on that hundreds of Gozitan trappers without a licence were awarded a licence before the 2003 election.
Nonetheless, the hunters were never pleased. And politicians continue to appease them. The Nationalist administration has been slow to react to calls for strict enforcement on illegal trapping sites and illegal hunting hides on government land. Indeed most of the 6,000 trappers are unaware that in a year’s time their trapping activities are technically over. It could turn hundreds of trappers, most especially in Gozo, to turn their backs on the government.
Farrugia knows from his partners in Europe that sooner or later the Birds Directive will have to be implemented and that Malta cannot stall the whole process. Farrugia knows this, but he feels that this is the moment to be vindicated.
None of the political parties are in a position to offer hunters much other than to procrastinate. Strangely, Alternattiva Demokratika, the Green Party, have refused to take the lead in the confronting the hunting lobby.
Unknown to Farrugia is the fact that the first two years were crucial in convincing the technocrats that Malta could uphold the derogations it had asked for. A breakdown of communication after the European parliamentary elections in 2003 stopped the government from attempting to convince Farrugia that all was not lost.
Instead of attempting to uphold the interests of the bona fide hunters who hunt specifically for turtle dove and quail in April and May, Farrugia has been assailed by the more vocal hunters within his organization – sea hunters who only number 230. The hunters who are renowned for their militancy have been pushing Farrugia to take a tougher stance. But the Directive is clear – hunting from fast boats is not permissible.
In his tirade, Farrugia has left no stone unturned and hit hard at BirdLife Malta and journalists who have voiced their opinion.
He has also allowed his staunch labourite supporters to carry effigies of Lawrence Gonzi and George Pullicino. In the year before an election, he knows that such things can only hurt. But it is only a question of time before Lino’s followers will come to terms with the stark reality that Europe’s Birds Directive has no allowances for ‘cowboys’.
Like the French, Italian and Spanish militant hunters, the Maltese hunter will bang and shout, but his days are numbered and Farrugia knows it.
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