FKNK returns fire - Birdlife ‘persisting in confrontation’

“It would be opportune to point out that the person responsible for posting the piece that you used as an excuse to trigger off your letter is not a member of the FKNK and does not hold a hunting and/or trapping licence,” FKNK president Joseph Buttigieg wrote in an open letter to BirdLife’s communications co-ordinator, Nicholas Barbara.

“In fact, it would not be completely senseless for one to opine that he could be a BirdLife member, it being not the first instance when BirdLife sympathizers contributed on our Forum.”

Buttigieg also questions Birdlife’s credentials as a conservationist group: “We do not consider your organisation to be conservationists, and your partners CABS are even less so, seeing that they are only after “Making Malta a hunting free zone”. Your organisation persists in confrontation and utters no hint of the factual improvement in the field over recent years, and this could also lead one to believe that this is the only way that you can collect more funds from misled persons.”
 
Full text of FKNK’s letter
 

Dear Mr Barbara,
 
We refer to your Open Letter dated 14th September 2010.

I would like to thank you for having found the time to write to me about an issue that was already under investigation.  However, please note that the internal affairs of the FKNK are not an issue for third parties to be involved in, including our Forum, and with all due respect, least of all your organisation.

In stark opposition to yours, our Forum is an open platform to anyone who may decide to just view and/or become a corresponding member (at present we have almost 5000 members who have contributed over 71000 posts in over 6000 topics – one must have someone full-time to be monitoring the Forum).  Anyone who is a member and decides to make a post is well aware of his/her responsibilities at law.

Any Forum member is also aware that if the Police, who it seems also monitor closely our Forum (very popular), request information about anyone, we will give them that information as we feel and are obliged to do and have always done.  This was also the case when the Police chose fit to investigate certain cases further and, where they deemed necessary took the case to the Criminal Courts.  So, in reply to your query, with all these national safeguards already in place, we feel that the Cyber-crime unit of the local Police Corps is more than capable of assessing and handling such issues according to law.

However, and since you chose to publicize this issue, it would be opportune to point out that the person responsible for posting the piece that you used as an excuse to trigger off your letter is not a member of the FKNK and does not hold a hunting and/or trapping licence.  In fact, it would not be completely senseless for one to opine that he could be a BirdLife member, it being not the first instance when BirdLife sympathizers contributed on our Forum.

With regard to your conclusive paragraph, please note that as we have always done, we condemn any form or type of violence.  However, it has also to be stated that we do not consider your organisation to be conservationists, and your partners CABS are even less so, seeing that they are only after “Making Malta a hunting free zone”.  Your organisation persists in confrontation and utters no hint of the factual improvement in the field over recent years, and this could also lead one to believe that this is the only way that you can collect more funds from misled persons.
 
Yours faithfully,
Joseph Buttigieg
FKNK President