A paper outlining the negative impacts of trapping on Malta's wild life has been presented to the Ornis Committee by Birdlife Malta.

Birdlife said in a statement its paper followed FKNK's demands to the committee in January to continue to allow trapping in Malta.

It said its paper also highlights the legally binding agreements to phase out trapping signed by Malta and the European Commission before Malta joined the EU.

trapping is illegal in the EU under the Birds Directive and that the five- year transition period for phasing out the trapping of seven species of finch (song birds) came to an end last December as agreed with the EU in the Accession Treaty Agreement.

"The European Commission gave Malta more than enough time to prepare for the full implementation of the Birds Directive by allowing trapping to be gradually phased out over a five year period and to disseminate this information to the trappers and Maltese people by the end of 2008.

“However the government has done almost nothing in this regard and this is causing a lot of confusion and false expectations from the trappers," Geoffrey Saliba, BirdLife Malta's campaigns coordinator said.

He said it was for this reason that BirdLife Malta, with support from MEPA, applied to the European Commission for an EU LIFE+ Information Project.

The EU Life+ project on Bird Migration and Trapping is the only LIFE+ project Malta obtained to date and is aimed at raising awareness on bird migration, the impacts of trapping and the legal status of trapping in the EU.

However, following a statement issued by the FKNK criticising Mepa's support for the LIFE+ project, the authority issued a statement denying it had gone into any formal agreement.

BirdLife said that last week it revealed the official documents signed by Mepa showing the authority's official commitment to the project.