Spring shooting concession "may be lifted"

Former BirdLife Malta president Joe Sultana is shortly expected to be made chairman of the Ornis Committee after the previous chairman, Saviour Balzan, twice submitted his resignation over the past six months.

The committee, modelled on the European Commission's Ornis Committee, is there to ensure hunting and trapping are sustainable. It was set up following amendments to regulations on the protection of birds and wild rabbits, which came into effect last year.

The Ornis Committee, made up of a government-appointed chairman, the director of the Environment Protection Department of the Malta Environment and Planning Authority, a technical expert and representatives of hunters and BirdLife Malta. The committee has not met over the past three months.

Sources said yesterday Mr Balzan's resignation had not been accepted and as the appointment was for a year, it was decided to make the replacement after the contractual date elapsed.

Mr Sultana was the government-appointed technical expert on the Ornis committee.

Contacted yesterday Mr Balzan said he was not willing to comment at this stage. He added that as the commitments Malta made at the negotiation stage of the EU membership talks were unlikely to be reached, the concession given to Malta for shooting and trapping in spring may be lifted.

Deadlines about these issues had been agreed with the Commission.

In July last year, when the committee was set up, Environment Minister George Pullicino had said one of the major tasks of the committee was to carry out a study on sustainable trapping. The committee also had to examine how the seven species of song bird allowed to be trapped could be bred in captivity in order to reduce their capture from the wild.

Among the projects that are still pending, is the registration of trapping sites, the breeding of song birds and an enforcement strategy.

Hunters were represented by the Federation of Hunters' Association but as there are other hunting organisations, it is not known whether the federation will be appointed again.

The federation and BirdLife were the only organisations on the committee because they were the only applicants which had met the established criteria: having more than 3,000 paid-up members, audited accounts and a committee elected at least once every two years.