The Wild Birds Regulation Unit was
established within the Parliamentary Secretariat for Agriculture, Fisheries and
Animal Rights following Government’s decision in May 2013 to centralise
the relevant regulatory functions pertaining to implementation of the
Conservation of Wild Birds Regulations (S.L. 549.42) and related subsidiary
legislation, and to oversee and drive the implementation of Government policy
in relation to sustainable hunting governance and wild birds conservation. On
the national front, the Wild Birds Regulation Unit was tasked with:
•
Implementation of a sweeping reform of the relevant
legislation concerning hunting and live- capturing to ensure simplification,
greater effectiveness, safeguarding the rights of all citizens including
hunters and live-capturers, as well as ensuring enforcement and compliance;
• Coordination
of the work of the necessary institutional structures, including Ornis
Committee, as well as liaison with the Police, Customs, Environment and
Resources Authority and other entities to ensure adequate implementation
and enforcement of applicable legislation on the ground;
• Centralisation,
simplification and streamlining of licensing processes and provision of a
one-stop-shop service to hunters and live-capturers;
• Coordination
of enforcement effort;
• Promotion
of awareness and culture change amongst the members of the hunting community,
based on the principles of sustainability and wise use of ecological resources;
• Delivery
of training programmes for hunters and enforcement officers;
• Administering
hunter and live-capturer education and examination programmes;
• Compilation
of statistics and data quality control;
• Commissioning
and implementing the necessary technical studies and reports;
• Issuance
of various licenses and permits and control over compliance with the license
conditions;
• Ensuring
continuous engagement and liaison with hunting organisations, environmental
NGOs and members of the hunting and live-capturing community;
Within the domain of international and
EU policy concerning sustainable hunting, the Unit has the following main
functions:
• Ensuring
compliance with the provisions of EU and international Acquis concerning
conservation of wild birds, including but not limited to the provisions of the
EU Birds Directive, Bern Convention, Bonn Convention and other relevant EU and
international instruments;
• Ensuring
correct implementation of spring hunting and autumn live-capturing derogations,
as well as all other relevant derogations as decided by Government;
Coordination of the preparation and timely
submission of the relevant derogation and other reports, monitoring policy
implementation and maintaining the required statistics;
• Dealing
with any open and potential infringement procedures, including EU Pilot
procedures, ongoing ECJ case;
• Liaising
with the relevant national, EU and international officials and performing other
related functions as necessary.
The Unit is structured around three
Branches:
The Specialist Enforcement
Branch coordinates all enforcement-related operations of WBRU. This
includes, amongst other, coordination with Police, Customs, AFM and other
entities; surveillance and patrols; inspections at points of entry and in
private residences, input to prosecution processes and investigations;
provision of expertise in relation to Court proceedings, coordination of
certain aspects of licensing and compliance processes, administrative fines
system, compilation of enforcement statistics and reports, administration of
stuffed birds registration system, liaison with foreign enforcement entities
(e.g. Europol, IMPEL, Italian Corpo Forestale, etc) and other related duties.
Over the past 3 years, the Branch achieved drastic reduction in incidence of
bird-related crime in Malta.
The Special Initiatives
and Customer Care Branch deals with the Unit’s main clients (circa
13,000 members of the hunting community), handles requests and complaints, acts
as front office for one-stop shop regulatory functions (both in Malta and
through separate office in Gozo), manages agreements with the FKNK and Birdlife
Malta concerning Tal Bosk and Tal Baghal farmhouses in Buskett, species
reintroduction projects and other initiatives. This Branch, amongst other
achieved a major quality leap in regulatory awareness amongst the hunting
community, which in turn translated into improved compliance with regulations.
The Policy Branch is
responsible for providing input to the formulation of government plans,
policies and regulations concerning conservation of wild birds. The Branch also
administers licensing and other regulatory processes (e.g. general hunting,
live-capturing licenses, special licenses for derogations, taxidermy licenses,
bird ringing licenses, etc), administration of licensing databases and
telephonic game reporting system, compilation of statistics and reports,
liaison with EU and international bodies, participation in international policy
fora, administration of hunter education and examination procedures, dealing
with infringement procedures, coordination of funding for conservation projects,
commissioning and implementing scientific studies and other related activities.
This Branch is behind implementation of major regulatory reforms that brought
about greatly increased protection for wild birds in Malta.
