The swans have hopefully not died in vain (see the whole story in the
final articles online; with the sad 3 ACTION PHOTOS of the eight Swan
killers at
< http://proaction.tripod.com/maltabulletins/id100.html >
Monday, January 28, 2002
< Foreign bird lovers give Malta stern warning >
by Herman Grech
376 sign letter
No fewer than 376 foreign environmentalists and bird lovers have written in
to
The Times urging the government to act against the slaughter of birds unless
the
islands wanted to be known as the "killing fields of Europe".
Political parties must be made to realise that kowtowing to a loud, but
non-representative and brutal minority, would not bring electoral success,
David
Conlin wrote on behalf of Proact International, a German-based organisation
which raised the signatures.
Proact is a non-political, independent organisation committed to
coordinating
and monitoring support for selected environmental campaigns in Europe.
The signatories, who hailed from countries as diverse as Mexico, Norway,
Australia and the Ukraine, were prompted to write-in following the massacre
of
eight mute swans at St Thomas Bay on January 20. The signatures were raised
via
the organisation's website.
The slaughter, carried out in full view of an astonished number of people,
prompted a nationwide debate, with scores of individuals and environmental
organisations calling on the government to embark on a concerted effort to
eradicate illegal hunting.
On Saturday, Birdlife Malta released shocking pictures of the killing of the
swans.
The swan has for centuries symbolised purity, faithfulness and grace and the
brutal execution of such creatures would "once again defy the belief of a St
Thomas", Mr Conlin said.
"It is perfectly legitimate for foreigners to express concern about the
despoliation of a shared heritage," he said.
He said it was in the long-term interests of Malta to allocate resources and
implement policies which would further the all-important tourism economy.
"The future of eco-tourism, visitors who will pay real money to see your
birds,
wildlife and natural beauty, is increasing. Other more traditional
'sun-tourists' are also increasingly shocked by the outdated and barbaric
practices which greet them in Malta or are reported in their national media.
"It's not yet too late Malta, but the future of the islands, and a great
deal of
the natural avian heritage of Europe, lies in your own hands."
Contacted in Germany, Mr Conlin said the bird-hunting issue in Malta was of
concern because of the island's geographical location which lured thousands
of
migratory birds.
He pointed out that Proact International recently campaigned against the
hunting
lobby in Cyprus, especially after a Cypriot restaurant in London was last
week
charged with serving little birds.
When contacted, Environment Minister Francis Zammit Dimech said that
government's priority was to enforce the existing hunting regulations,
though it
was willing to discuss the introduction of new stricter measures should the
need
arise.
"I believe we have to strike the right balance. We want to respect hunting
as a
tradition, but we have to drive the message home that hunters cannot go
about
flouting the law," Dr Zammit Dimech said.
The minister said he had been in touch with Police Commissioner John Rizzo
over
the past few days in connection with the issue of illegal hunting.
The home affairs and environment ministries had often worked hand in hand in
an
attempt to create effective enforcement procedures, he said.
The Environment Monitoring Board, consisting of police, Birdlife and
hunters'
organisations, had been set up with this specific intention in mind.
Dr Zammit Dimech defended the police's track record by saying that the
number of
hunters brought to justice for flouting the laws was higher than ever.
Asked whether government was prepared to increase the hunting penalties, the
minister cautiously replied that these were quite harsh, especially since
they
included imprisonment and the confiscation of all means used to carry out
the
illegal activity.
One had to keep in mind that the three hunters apprehended for Sunday's
incident
were charged in court under arrest, he said.
Dr Zammit Dimech said he preferred to focus on education rather than, say,
revising the hunters' licences.
"Sadly, there are still some hunters who think they can get away with it and
should illegal hunting prevail, despite the clear conditions set, then we
are
prepared to introduce stricter measures."
On Friday, Din l-Art Helwa urged government to increase substantially the
annual
licences for carrying a shotgun for hunting.
A licence for a shotgun to shoot on land costs Lm12 a year and to shoot at
sea,
Lm30.
___________________________________________
This article may also be viewed at
http://www.timesofmalta.com/core/article.php?id=87155
=========
Web posted on January 28, 2002 at 09:00:00 CET
Act before it?s too late
It has taken the tragic and very public slaying of mute swans ? in front of
innocent children ? to finally arouse widespread local disgust and unite
many Maltese in condemnation of the barbaric extent to which hunters on
Malta will go.
The European Mute Swan, with its pure white colouring, gracefulness and
highly developed and visible social and family characteristics, has been
afforded a high degree of protection, and often royal patronage, long before
environmental consciousness began to develop in our societies.
Swans have played a number of important roles in mythology and in varying
cultural forms; their latest role is sadly as martyr for the cause of bird
protection on Malta.
To anyone who follows such developments on Malta, and it is a growing number
worldwide as such stories hit the media, the swan bloodbath in St Thomas?
Bay is only the sad and inevitable consequence of the lack of political will
to give a high priority to stamping out the illegal trapping and hunting
faction who terrorise the natural world and demolish ancient monuments.
To many it is amazing that the islands can support any form of hunting, let
alone all those registered hunters, without eventually exterminating all but
species specifically reared for killing; but your own ecologists on the
islands will know best.
Unfortunately their warnings have often been ignored in the past; and the
blustering of the FKNK in a vain attempt to disassociate themselves from
their lunatic fringe has hindered rather than helped matters.
The signatories to this letter are politically and nationally independent
and have no quarrel with the Maltese people. All of us would like nothing
better than to visit an island paradise in the Mediterranean and enjoy its
natural beauty and quiet; but will avoid the cultural and natural desert
which a small, vociferous and crude minority is busily creating.
Nor are we busybodies interfering in the internal affairs of your country.
Most of us are Europeans, as the Maltese de facto are ? and will soon de
jure be ? we hope.
The problem of dwindling European bird populations is therefore one that
affects us all in the medium and long term. Our plea to the people of Malta
and your politicians to put a stop to this mindless massacre of other
creatures was triggered by appeals for support from your own
conservationists; and for many of us bitter personal experience on your
islands.
Birds have no boundaries; regrettably they have far too few advocates on
this planet. At the end of the day only the people of Malta can stand up and
vote with their voice, and ballot paper, to finally put a stop to this
unnecessary haemorrhage of your cultural and natural heritage. We hope that
they act soon... before it?s too late.
David Conlin
Proact International
Berlin
http://www.independent.com.mt/daily/lettersview.asp?id=1601
Swan lake massacre: Open letter to President Guido de Marco
I read in the press that Maltese hunters killed half a dozen Mute Swans. It
is not the first time that we have heard about the slaughter of wildlife,
which in our country is protected.
I can only condemn this particularly brutal and unnecessary killing. It is,
for me, a clear reason not to visit your beautiful and historically
interesting country.
I think that a country that can not stop these killings does not belong in
the European Union. May I propose to your government to enact harsher
penalties, including custodial sentences for illegal hunting and trapping,
and that police manpower and resources be increased to tackle the problem.
I cannot understand how people can say that this barbaric and outmoded
hunting is a ?sport?.
Geert Van Damme
Denderbelle (Lebbeke), Belgium
http://www.independent.com.mt/daily/lettersview.asp?id=1599
Hunting: the great untruth
Harry Vassallo
"They should be executed in public" was the reaction of an eyewitness to the
killing of swans in St Thomas Bay last Sunday. That expression of pain and
outrage was echoed across Europe and quoted in newspapers as far away as
Scotland.
To be blessed by the sight of wild birds having the grace and majesty of
swans in a place so afflicted by environmental mismanagement, was a
once-in-a-lifetime gift. The birds were killed, the witnesses were raped.
The swan killers themselves would have been in great danger had any of the
witnesses been armed.
Because of the public outrage we can expect the miscreants to receive the
full penalty allowed by law: a Lm500 fine, confiscation of the boat,
suspension of shooting licence. On confirmation of guilt, the hunters'
associations will be challenged to co-operate in denying the offenders'
approval for the issue or renewal of a hunting licence. It will change
nothing.
Bird lovers may be unable to appreciate that the killing of swans is a
violation also of hunters who have always had a code of conduct. I come from
a hunting family. My commitment to the environment comes from several
seasons acting as my father's retriever. I soon had enough of bloodied,
tattered birds in the throes of agony. The love of the countryside and an
interest in living things remained.
I have cherished memories of the friendly banter across the marble-topped
tables of village coffee shops, the sound of town and country Maltese easily
mingled in a debate about the weather or in reminiscing about the glorious
bag of yesteryear. The swan killers would have been misfits there also. It
would have been unthinkable to my father to shoot a swan. He would have had
nothing but contempt for anyone who did.
That was 40 years ago. In the meantime the politics of hunting changed.
Nobody dreamt that the laudable efforts of MOS (now BirdLife) would bring
about the cohesion of the grab-bag of individualists who called themselves
hunters. Who'd ever dream that hunting would ever become a political issue,
a crucial political issue? Nothing would seem more bizarre to the hunters I
knew than a description of today's politics.
A vast majority of the Maltese, 60 per cent of a 5,000-person sample in a
Planning Authority survey, want the hunters brought to heel. A majority
unattainable by the hysterics of party propaganda rejected the concessions
made to hunters in terms of the agreement signed by the PN with the hunters'
associations prior to the 1998 elections. A vast majority ignored.
The 1996 electoral campaign reversed the life quality gains made by bird
lovers, environmentalists and by the whole population. Regardless of the
blurb in electoral manifestoes since 1987, the environment was rudely shoved
aside as the MLP went for the prize. Hunters would have all their dreams
come true if the MLP were elected.
On the day after a stunned PN realised that the hunting issue had been
miscalculated (along with VAT and its income tax implications) the
environment dropped like a hot brick from their agendas. By the 1998
election campaign, the hunters' associations had stitched up both parties
represented in Parliament.
It was a national humiliation exposing the depth to which we had sunk
ensnared in the insane logic of two party politics. Hunting is an
irrelevance, democracy is the ideological foundation for our common
political existence. Democracy was defeated again in 1998.
The two parties in Parliament are unable to share any common ground. Their
price is absolute power for five years and they'll trade anything for it.
They have no choice: it's the institutional arithmetic of a pure two-party
system. Today it's hunting and public land at Armier. Tomorrow it could be
anything at all. Nothing is too bizarre.
In a civilised Malta political parties would have a bond in honour not to
exploit issues which threaten the foundations of their legitimacy. Hunting
exposes the contrary reality. Armier confirms it and we are left to wonder
what else burdens the bottom line in the electoral invoices of the other two
parties. What other pre-election deals are struck, what other democratic
obscenities can be digested by our rivals?
Only AD - the Green Party speaks this way. All others cloak the prostitution
of democracy in elaborate rationalizations and the wisdom pearls of scoffing
pragmatism. The brokering of the BirdLife-hunters deal was hailed as a major
achievement. It cheats everyone. The hunters are lulled into the belief that
they can always defeat the will of the vast majority of the Maltese.
BirdLife was forced into a compromise that alienates its following and
threatens its international standing. The country confirms its scepticism of
anything stated by anyone in politics. Untruth reigns supreme.
In this atmosphere aberrations attempt to become the norm. The swan killers
must have killed buzzards, harriers, owls, gulls, skylarks and swallows, for
fun, for years and with total impunity. They use boats, automatic guns,
illegal ammunition, electronic lures and all the wonders of modern
technology to blast whatever comes their way.
No government, no political party that erodes the foundations of its own
legitimacy can convince the ignorant, the uneducated and the newly affluent
politcally oppressed that they have a need to observe the law in their own
interest. The social contract is a sham. The law is there to be cheated. The
swan killers mimic politicians in the art of the possible. The swan killers
are not to blame. They have been corrupted by their mentors.
Here comes the EU referendum. It will be the apotheosis of Maltese politics.
A moment of vast national importance binding our homeland and the future of
our children's children to the future of the growing major player in our
region will be decided not by open debate, not by informed decision not by
sober reflection, but by the aberrant swan killers. Whether or not Malta
will move closer to the social, political, cultural, economic and
environmental heartland of its reality hinges on the whims of the
democratically depraved.
Long before all this my father hung up his gun and gave up the pastime of
his ancestors. Years later he spoke to me of hunting as an absurdity, an
intolerable contradiction for a free person in an age in which extinction
proceeds globally at a rate never seen before.
Hunting had been a shared history, not a cause of friction between us. He
had taught me all he knew of birds, the weather, wild plants and animals,
how much of the countryside had disappeared before my time and what a
wonderful place Malta had been in his youth. He taught me the Roman dictum
that we are slaves of the law in order to be free.
I could never have called for my father to be executed in public. He would
never have provoked the outburst. He joined the Green Party in 1989 and
shared our battles until his death. An ex-hunter and a civilised man, he
shared our concern for the country's future threatened by the institutional
logic of a two-party political system. We have two rivals but only one
enemy: the two-party system.
Just as the depraved sense the hypocrisy of official institutions and
justify their own aberrations, the vast majority have begun to sense the
precarious state of the intricate untruth which passes for politics in
Malta. The bubble is about to burst. It takes only a few hundred people to
give the country a breath of fresh air. Two-thirds of the country wants a
radical reform it can only achieve through the Green Party. It is only the
untruth of partisan television that holds us back: a bubble.
Soon we will allow the country to breathe freely again. We will free our
rivals from the logic that traps them in the untruth game and allow them to
give their best to the country. Soon we will change the face of this
wonderful could-have-been-country simply by our presence in parliament.
Among other things we will preside over the extinction of hunting in Malta.
Dr Vassallo is chairman of Alternattiva Demokratika - the Green Party.
www.alternattiva.org.mt
============
david camilleri
Please now go to < http://proaction.tripod.com/malta/ >
Why don't you join < http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Eurobirder > and
< http://proaction.tripod.com/team/
< http://www.MaltaTouristAction.org
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