Hunters and birdlovers get by with a little help from the Commission

Date: 09/10/2003

By Karen Carstens

HUNTERS and ornithologists may seem like strange bedfellows, but they do share a common bond: a love of the land that sustains the animals they covet.

Both stalk their prey, but while the hunter seeks to kill, the avid birdwatcher just wants to admire.

This has not exactly made for harmonious relations in the past. But each side, represented by the Federation of Associations for Hunting and Conservation (FACE) on one hand, and by BirdLife International on the other, has entered into a kind of armistice.

"These organizations probably have a lot more in common than they realize," said one official in the European Commission's environment directorate.

"They both want birds, they both want habitats, they both want conservation."

Yet the trouble with such an emotionally charged and polarizing debate is just that - it tends to push people apart.

For years, the European Parliament was bombarded, in the words of the official, by "millions of petitions", making divergent demands to rephrase the wording of a seminal wild birds directive adopted in 1979. This directive was in response to an alarming fall in the populations of some species.

During those dark days of hunter-birder relations, FACE and BirdLife were doing battle to win over MEPs, who began asking the Commission whether it was not time to revise the EU hunting guidelines laid down in the directive.

Environment Commissioner Margot Wallström, however, has consistently said she would never tinker with the directive, as this is widely regarded as tantamount to opening up a Pandora's Box of demands for changes.

So the Commission devised its own plan sometwo years ago and that has been strongly backed by Wallström, whose father and husband are both hunters in the Swedish tradition of regarding the bucolic sport as just as natural as gathering mushrooms.

Called the 'sustainable hunting initiative', it aims to find solutions outside the directive and brings together both sides, with the Commission acting as mediator.

And it has yielded some positive results, including a ten-point action plan that seeks to streamline mutual efforts at conservation, the monitoring of bird populations and the education and training of hunters.

The latter point is particularly sensitive in southern member states, where a more laissez-faire approach to hunting prevails when compared to the Scandinavian countries, where a well-regulated hunting culture exists.

Another aim is to move beyond the action plan, with a charter on sustainable hunting that the Commission would like to see everyone reach agreement on next year.

This would mark the 25th anniversary of the birds directive.

But Clairie Papazoglou, director of BirdLife's Brussels office, declared she would not sign any charter unless she sees more commitment from hunters in revealing just how many birds they take. "At present, we have no idea how many birds are being killed," she said, although she was quick to add that Denmark, for instance, is a model nation in this regard. When Danish hunters renew their annual hunting licences, they are required to put in writing how many birds they have shot that season.

Yves Lecocq, the secretary-general of FACE, said the organization has made strides in obtaining indicative hunting statistics from member states and aims to create an EU-wide information database by next year.

But the Belgian-born veterinarian conceded that the monitoring of migratory species "needs to improve".

Member states set their own hunting rules, but the Commission takes a bird's eye view via the directive. Therefore, national laws must fit into this framework legislation.

The legal hunting season for most birds lasts roughly from 1 September to 31 January, although for some species it extends into February.

The directive stipulates that hunting is not allowed during birds' migrations to their breeding areas and during their reproductive periods. It also lists several species that cannot be hunted at all.

"Key political figures such as [former European Commission president] Jacques Delors have used hunting as an example where subsidiarity should apply," said Lecocq, referring to the principle whereby decisions are taken at the lowest level of government possible.

But some questions persist vis-à-vis the birds directive.

At present, both BirdLife and FACE are eagerly anticipating a European Court of Justice ruling due on Thursday (16 October). It pertains to a specific, yet vaguely worded, derogation in the directive that would allow modifications to the usual season if it can be demonstrated that recreational hunting constitutes "judicious use" and only "small quantities" are taken.

The ruling is expected to follow an earlier opinion issued by the Court stating that it does not meet the above conditions in this case, which stems from a question put to it by France's highest court after the country's hunters said the season should be extended into February for three species.

This would be good news for BirdLife, and not necessarily bad news for FACE, which represents some seven million hunters across Europe. Still, Lecocq said hunters are irked when they are made to feel as though the "same season applies from Lapland to Cyprus".

The French hunters' request for a few more weeks is not really about 'extending' the September-January hunting period which has become the norm, he added, but regaining a little bit of ground compared to an old season that used to last from July to mid-March.

BirdLife's Papazoglou, however, said that the ruling should not "put an end to all derogations", even if the opinion is a "strict interpretation" of the directive.

Other possible derogations, including killing birds if they block airport runways or harm farmers' crops, will remain unchanged. Some member states, for example, control cormorant populations to protect their fish stocks.

Papazoglou warned that Malta has already announced it will use the case as an excuse to continue its controversial hunting of finches if the ruling goes in the French hunters' favour.

"We really don't want this being used as a loophole for Malta and other countries to hunt in spring," she said. Lecocq agreed that "Malta will have to fall into line" on hunting once it joins the EU next year, although it has been granted a derogation for finch trapping until May 2009 (see page 20).

The Commission, meanwhile, believes the ruling's importance should not be exaggerated: "It is simply clarifying a legal duty, not seeking to condemn a country," said an official.

One point, moreover, that is easily forgotten in such legal wrangling is that habitat loss - not hunting - is the biggest threat to Europe's bird populations, he added.

"Migratory birds are our shared heritage," he said. "And this is all about developing a common framework for ensuring that these birds survive."