Real 'farce' at Ornis meeting

In reply to comments made by BirdLife, I would like to clear some points raised with regard to this week's Ornis meeting. At the end of a four-hour meeting it was agreed by all that the outcome of the meeting was to remain confidential and that the chairman would deliver to the authorities any way forward in connection with spring hunting. I was contacted by the media and so were fellow committee members but we stood by what was agreed and refrained from leaking information.

By the time I drove home I discovered that BirdLife had forgotten all about the confidentiality and had given their own version of events in timesofmalta.com and in so doing, at the spur of the moment, they let their emotions drive them senseless, so much so that they attributed facts which were nonexistent.

The first remark was that the meeting was farcical and that the Prime Minister was using Ornis as a smoke screen. The Prime Minister declared in Parliament on November 9 that spring hunting will be opened. I circulated an online recording of the parliamentary sitting. All the members of Parliament of both sides agree that spring hunting should be opened, with or without Ornis consent. In the past the government closed or restricted the seasons without any advice from Ornis. Even at this stage the government may still not open the season, despite what was agreed.

The comment of "farcical" applies exactly to what BirdLife tried to do by blocking any way forward with senseless and repeated arguments that had no basis. They literally tried to take over the meeting without any argument to substantiate their claim. The judgement by the European Court of Justice was a brick wall for all their types of reasoning. Their continuous baseless interruptions led the chairman to remark that their intentions were only to put spokes in the wheels.

It must be recorded that FKNK circulated their proposals, which were confidential, days before the Ornis meeting. BirdLife broke all ethics and published their comments on these proposals to gain support.

The Ornis meeting started with Andrè Raine's counter proposals, which were printed but not circulated. These counter proposals took 45 minutes to read out and believe me, trying to follow Dr Raine's accent of speech in a rather fast forward mode is no joke. How can BirdLife comment on the circulation of Mepa proposals when their own counter proposals, which were much longer, were not circulated? After all, Mepa's proposals were more or less based on the FKNK's, which BirdLife published except for the bag limits.

I believe there is still time for both NGOs to work together. We heard FKNK asking BirdLife for the CABS to come and help with the supervision of illegal hunting, when in the past FKNK were against their presence. We still have to see an approach by BirdLife showing good faith in this regard. All they have done to date was to criticise all that FKNK are trying to do to educate the hunters. Let us look on the positive side for the future and involve both NGOs in fruitful service to the public. Legal hunting has to be accepted; anything illegal has to be deplored and penalised.