Hands off Majjistral Park

The Majjistral Nature and History Park was born in September 2007. That’s just 10 years ago. In fact, the Park Management and the Park Board were gearing up to celebrate the 10th anniversary with a programme of events and activities when all our plans were suddenly shattered by an appalling bombshell.

We were told that the hunting and trapping lobby had demanded that the hunting and trapping times in the Park should be extended from 10am to 12.30 and 14.30 respectively. When the Park was originally launched, the management was – and still is – entrusted to a federation of three environmental NGOs – Din l-Art Ħelwa, Nature Trust Malta, and Gaia Foundation. This Federation had lobbied to keep the Park free of all hunting and trapping activities in order to promote a nature reserve where the public could enjoy nature in its pristine condition in the most serene and relaxing atmosphere possible.

However, even then, the administration was pressured to refrain from definitively prohibiting hunting and trapping in the Park. It was ordained that hunting and trapping would be allowed in the park up until 9am. In 2013, a new Labour administration changed the Legal Notice to allow hunting and trapping an extra hour in what was then acknowledged as a compro- mise solution welcomed by FKNK. The Park Management duly tweaked the schedule of activities to ensure, as much as possible, that schoolchildren, nature lovers, researchers, nature photographers, ecotourists, and other like-minded visitors did not encounter any confrontations with hunters or trappers.

As the Park Management continued to diversify its activities and to use its Visitors’ Centre to host a growing repertoire of cultural and environmental events, the number of people visiting the Park on a regular basis increased exponentially. Notwithstanding regular complaints from visitors about the strange cohabitation of ecological initiatives and gun-toting hunters, an uneasy apartheid somehow prevailed.

Another election came and went and we sincerely started hoping that, this time round, it would be the Environment that would be given priority. Were we in for a surprise?! I was suddenly summoned before Minister Herrera and Parliamentary Secretary Clint Camilleri to be told that it had been decreed that the hunting and trapping hours would be increased and that a new Legal Notice was being formulated to reflect this new reality. The Hon Clint Camilleri made it very clear that he had been delegated by higher authority to godfather this new Legal Notice. My reaction was, understandably, not very under- standing. I considered it my duty, both to the Park and to the administration, to call a spade a spade.

My position had been made clear from the very outset. Any further extension to the hunting and trapping hours would throw the management of the Park activities and events into total disarray. We already had our work cut out for us. The natural geographical beauty of the Park and the ecological assets that endow it with such evocative diversity provided our visitors with such an emotional charge that they kept coming back and bringing their friends with them. While this rendered all our work immensely gratifying, it also meant that we were obliged to work even harder to provide adequate facilities and to render the Park’s assets and features more accessible.

In this context, it remains incomprehensible that any changes can be countenanced that would place all this work in jeopardy. It was inconceivable that hunters and trappers would now be allowed to operate in the Park while we had eco-tourists, schoolchildren, youth organisations, researchers, nature excursionists and hikers enjoying the vibrant biodiversity of the park.

The previous extension to the hunting hours had already required a considerable re-adjustment to our activities schedule. What was being proposed now was a full-frontal attack on the very viability of the Majjistral Park as a concept and as a reality. As chair of the Management Board of the Majjistral Park, I could never acquiesce to such a proposal. This would render the management of the Park extremely problematic and chaotic – and possibly hazardous.

Several other meetings were held at the Ministry for the Environment with the participation of the rest of the Majjistral Board. The majority of the Board reiterated the same position that I had already expounded – except that they were even more explicitly critical of the proposal.

Minister Herrera pointed out that, notwithstanding his sympathy for the sentiments expressed by the Park Board, he was appealing to us to find a compromise solution because on the very next day, Cabinet was scheduled to meet to decide on this matter.

The Board decided to hold a meeting there and then to discuss the matter and present Minister Herrera with a counter proposal. This was to suggest that perhaps hunting and trapping hours could be extended – but only within the boundaries of regularly leased agricultural land. There are extensive areas of agricultural fields within the Park’s boundaries and we always advise our visitors to avoid trespassing in those areas unless there are farmers present who invite them in. Consequently, this could provide hunters and trappers with extended time for their activities without bringing them in direct contact with our visitors.

The compromise solution was not welcomed by the NGOs forming the Management Federation, but they accepted that it was the only counterproposal that could be tolerated. They insisted that their opposition to any extension in hunting and trapping time should be clearly documented. Other members insisted that, since this would now complicate the management of the Park even further, the Board should take this opportunity to reiterate its long-standing request for an enhanced financial grant.

We could have saved our breath. Our compromise solution was shot down the very next day. But we kept on milling around the same spot trying to persuade the Minister and Parliamentary Secretary to desist from pushing this proposal. They kept asking us for compromises. But what they were really asking of us was capitulation. The message became very clear. They call the shots – and we comply.

But that is not the mission we had accepted to undertake. Our mission was – and is – to manage and regenerate the Majjistral Nature and History Park. There is simply no way that anybody can possibly argue that nature visits and hunters could be accommodated in the same place at the same time.

The suggestion is purely preposterous and needs to be condemned without reservation. We have made one compromise after another to try to accommodate the hunting lobby while retaining a modicum of sustainability and viability for the Park. Any further encroachment would render the Park just another hunting reserve.

I had appealed to the Prime Minister to use his authority to stop this proposal. He asked me to find a compromise. I did find a compromise and tabled it but it was simply ignored.

This is a management concern. It has nothing to do with anybody’s views on hunting and trapping. It is a matter of how you manage the two contrasting and mutually excluding activities on the same land. Mixing them together is not merely a mistake. It is unmitigated folly. The question then arises: is this proposal – now Legal Notice – intended to chase all nature lovers, all schoolchildren, and all eco-tourists out of the Park for the duration of the hunting season? If this is the ill-advised intention behind this abject amendment to the Legal Notice, then I will do everything I can to make sure that it will not happen –whether in my current capacity as chairman or otherwise.

I cannot, however, just leave it at that. I am not throwing a gauntlet. I am offering an opportunity to the FKNK to become our allies and to properly earn the “Konservazzjonisti” part of their title. Our compromise proposal was tailored to produce a win-win solution. A win-lose solution can only breed rancour and disillusionment and bitterness. There is still time to change this Legal Notice. And that is what I must insist on doing.

However, it is not enough that I voice my total opposition to this Legal Notice. I must appeal to the Prime Minister and to all his Cabinet to reconsider what they have done. I entreat them to reverse this amendment and allow this oasis in the northwest of Malta to thrive and to be enjoyed wholly and wholesomely and serenely by our families, our schoolchildren our eco-tourists and nature lovers as a whole. This Legal Notice is not carved in granite. It can be changed back.

The Prime Minister has a track record of tackling thorny issues and marching in where others feared to tread. In this case, he has chosen to allow his Cabinet to take the easy way out. Or so they think. I must impress on him that this Legal Notice is bad. It is wrong. It is a mistake.

Please wipe this blot off our statute books.