Lock, stock and 17,000 barrels

Lino Farrugia, ‘the voice of hunters,’ takes on the race to Brussels, but risks exposing the real power of the hunters’ lobby once and for all

A dead woodcock, its brown head hanging lifeless in Lino Farrugia’s hand, generates both comic appeal and deadpan astonishment. It is the poster for Farrugia’s candidacy to the European Parliament, ‘the voice of hunters and trappers in Europe,’ it brandishes.
Bordered in green, very much akin to an Environment Ministry promotional poster, the picture depicts Lino Farrugia, the 48-year old secretary for the Hunters, Trappers and Conservationist Federation (Federazzjoni Kaccaturi Nassaba u Konservazzjonisti), kneeling with double-barrelled shotgun in hand, his two pointers obediently at ease, and that dead woodcock. If this was England, Farrugia could have faced a near lynching for displaying such poker-faced insouciance.
But this is Malta, where the common abbreviation ‘ABZ’ tends to be at the heart of every political statement. Over here, the sight of an eternally comatose gallina, with the aperture from which a deadly amount of lead entered its frail body in clear view, will certainly cause no commotion.
And indulgently, Farrugia provides irony. The woodcock is the logo for his MEP candidacy, chosen for its exclusive fare, a rare favourite of hunters all over Europe, and also a delicacy. But over his name, that woodcock bares its breast in majestic flight, alive.
Lino Farrugia is very accessible and accommodating for a representative of the Maltese gun-wielding bird-poppers. This time however, no beating about the bush and just down-to-earth demands. Deep down he has had to accept the reality of the EU’s Birds Directive, which abolishes hunting for Spring save for a derogation, Article 9, which has allowed the Maltese to blast a restricted amount of turtle doves and quails during the season. Nonetheless it has removed most of the fun for hunters. If anything, Farrugia is no longer as gung-ho as he could have been ahead of the EU referendum. In the future, Spring hunting is liable to face total abolition in Malta, and this time it will be the EU that will press the button.
“If we had been given greater involvement in the EU negotiations, our situation could have been better,” Farrugia says. “We could have won better pre-accession conditions, which the government did not fight for. In Malta, traditional hunting takes place in Spring, which comprises of migratory birds passing over the island round about March. Now hunting in Spring has been restricted. Thirty species previously hunted in Spring have been removed from the list of fair game.
“For us the problem is that the derogation in the Birds Directive has to be renewed every year, and it is the EU that has to grant permission for the Maltese government to implement this derogatory. To contradict what Jason Azzopardi (PN International Secretary and MP) has said, this is no guarantee from the government that hunting has been left intact. The Brussels Ornis Committee can object to renew the directive, and now we have been left at the mercy of Brussels.
“We told the government not to declare its intention to use the derogation during the EU negotiations, because as Member States we would have had the right to use the derogation anyway. Instead we asked to get pre-accession concessions since the rate of hunting in Malta is relatively much less than that in other EU countries. Richard Cachia Caruana, the EU chief negotiator for Malta, wanted to do otherwise.”
So now there is nothing that can be done, Farrugia concedes. Which is why he wants to become an MEP and defend hunters’ interests in Malta, wary of those first warning signs that could see the EU press the button against Spring hunting. In his view, hunting is intrinsically ‘Maltese,’ and he is extremely ‘proud to be Maltese.’
Farrugia announced his candidature for the EP shortly after bulldozers from the Lands Department entered a favourite hunting spot at l-Ahrax tal-Mellieha to remove the hunting hides. Farrugia claimed the land had been administered by the FKNK for donkey’s years. Some claimed that the action, right in the middle of the PN leadership election, was a show of force intended to incite an abrasive reaction from the hunters, and have Lawrence Gonzi come across as a no-nonsense law enforcer: “After the leadership election, Home Affairs and Justice Minister Tonio Borg told us in a meeting that the action had come from an ‘over-zealous’ official at the Lands Department.”
The two main parties are certainly not happy with Farrugia’s candidacy. “During the press conference for the launch of the candidacy, the party media did not cover the event, contrary to tradition. The objective naturally is to minimise our coverage.
“We have also had indirect pressure from party officials and MPs who are also hunters who told us not to contest, or that we were committing a mistake to run for the EP.”
His candidacy could be a mistake: if Farrugia fails to confirm the power of the FKNK’s 11,000 hunters and 6,000 trappers, the real power of the hunters’ lobby will be sussed out. A poor showing could imply that the hunters’ lobby is weak and divided.
“I am conscious that our voters will be chipping off support from the Nationalist Party and the Malta Labour Party. We’re certainly not taking any from Alternattiva Demokratika’s. Come what may, I will be doing my utmost. My feet are rooted to the ground. I know how passionate political partisanship can be. But in the past, so many Labourites chose to vote Nationalist and vice-versa on the grounds of hunting.
“We’re telling our members this is their last chance to safeguard what is left of their pastime, and to give me their first preference, and carry on with other candidates of their party. If I’m not elected, our votes will be transferred to other candidates.”
Farrugia disagrees with the appellation of ‘bullies’ for the hunters’ lobby. He admits both the PN and the MLP have accommodated the lobby in past times. “I won’t deny the fact that we have been using them as we please, because we acquired concessions from both sides… the parties are scared of losing a vote.”
Farrugia comes clean over illegal hunting. He says it with hundred percent conviction that illegal hunting gives it a bad name all round. And he also agrees that the Mnajdra trappers, under MEPA enforcement notices for the past two years, but so far never having been budged by our bold and plucky environmental authorities, should in effect move out, with one condition. “Those trappers have been there as long as those temples. All we want to is have them relocated elsewhere if they are to be removed from there.”
Lino Farrugia’s political agenda has already been tried by the local media. How can his triple vision for hunting, environmental conservation and tourism coexist when traditionally, hunting is at the other end of the environmental debate, and tourism tends to shy away from blasting shotguns in the countryside? There’s a shortfall in vision at a certain point. But Farrugia, a hotelier himself, seeks to offer balance, irrespective of how debatable his position may be:
“Any environmentalist is at conflict with tourism in a certain sense,” he justifies. “If someone buys a piece of land and builds a hotel, that land has lost its environmental charm, meaning that pastimes such as bird-watching or hunting are no longer possible. For me, in my 30 years experience in the hotel industry, the environment must be part of the tourism product. Abroad you see tourism and environmental portfolios grouped within the same ministry.
“There is no apparent conflict between tourism and hunting. What is said about tourists not coming to the island because of hunting is untrue. Few may be influenced by that. In my experience, many understand and accept hunting as just another tradition.
“The problem is the sensationalism with which newspapers tackle hunting. Take the spoonbill killing. No evidence or suspects. And yet the bad name is there, so much so we have had to take legal steps in respect of the killing of those birds.”
Farrugia has been a Board representative on the Malta Tourism Authority since 1999 as secretary of the Federation of Malta Hotels, Pensions and Catering Establishments. In his manifesto, he says that every government has to recognise the importance of tourism and give the sector as much importance needed without reservations – ‘I will do anything possible for tourism in this country’ – he claims, and ‘I am a rebel against unscrupulous and unadulterated speculation of this sweet land’…
“Take the example of who buys land and develops it in apartments or a hotel, without appropriate planning, ruining the environment,” Farrugia says, who claims he will encourage the sustainable use of natural resources and work in tandem with conservationist societies.
“Conservationism, but not protection,” his boldest statement so far in his manifesto, in which he writes that speculation leads to the loss of the natural environment, consequently stopping a tradition like hunting, and that “once a tradition is stopped, it is no longer a tradition and it is forgotten… a big loss for our children, Maltese and Gozitan.”
“Take the ‘Common Snipe,’ a bird often hunted in Malta. In Belgium the Common Snipe would be found in swamp areas. Hunters searching for Snipes would rent out these areas to hunt there. Automatically this meant that the hunters were protecting the areas there.
“When the Belgian government decided to designate the Snipe as a protected species, the hunters no longer rented out the land, with the end result that the snipe practically no longer lives in Belgium, since the areas where they used to roam are now developed,” Farrugia claims, alluding to a point where hunting should automatically guarantee conservation of the natural environment.
I ask him if stricter environment laws would suffice in this matter – does he agree with a moratorium on hotels, and other developments? “I have been in the tourism business for the past 30 years. Last year I formed the Three-star Action Committee. One of our proposals was a moratorium on hotel beds. We have ample supply and no demand. Additionally, this year will see the loss of around 800 directly-employed persons in the industry. We cannot employ any more workers in this situation.”
Farrugia’s generic conclusion is that the culprits for the degeneration of the tourism product in Malta are all past governments. “We don’t even have branding. You think of Egypt and you have pyramids. What do you think of when you think of Malta? Every single government has never given enough importance to tourism. But at the end of the day, politicians are not elected by tourists.”
It remains to be seen where Farrugia will find himself most comfortable in the European Parliament, should he be elected. As someone who wants to retain the status quo, Farrugia is undeniably in the right-wing section of the ideological spectrum, and an outlet may be Jens-Peter Bonde’s Europe of Democracy and Diversities, which groups eurosceptics, Christian-fundamentalists, and French hunters Chasse-Peche-Nature-Traditions (Hunting, Fishing, Nature, Traditions). Farrugia is still shopping around, as expected, for the grouping that will give hunting its most powerful outlet.