WHILE nobody condones violence, it is not difficult to understand why the bird conservationists were beaten up at the weekend, while touring the Paralimni area collecting limesticks and bird-trapping nets. They were not only trespassing on private property, but they were targeting a very lucrative, though illegal, business.

Of course if the locals had nothing to hide, they would not have beaten up the foreign activists of the Committee Against Bird Slaughter (CABS), but would have reported them to the police for trespassing. On the other hand, no matter how worthy their cause, the activists had no legal right to enter anyone’s property without authorisation and did so at their own risk. They could not have expected to have been welcomed by people, offered coffee and treated with civility, as they collected lime-sticks.

Local people and members of hunters’ groups had a point in asking by what authority the CABS members had decided to raid private properties?

“The law should be enforced by the Games Service and the Police,” said the president of the Hunting and Wildlife Preservation Federation. He was correct, but the activists had a different agenda – they wanted to publicise the fact that the law against the trapping of ampelopoulia, an endangered bird species, was not being adequately enforced.

They achieved this objective by collecting mist nets and lime-sticks and by filming what they found, even though their camcorder was reportedly smashed up by their attackers. They also secured a high level of publicity by being beaten up – more foreign media would have reported the story because the activists were beaten up while pursuing a worthy cause. In a perverse way, the assault against the conservationists benefited their cause – Cyprus was again in the spotlight for reportedly failing to honour its signature to the Berne Convention.

The truth is that the trapping of ambelopoulia is big business in the eastern part of the island – one paper estimated the annual turnover from the sale of the endangered bird at €15 million – and the authorities have not been too zealous in implementing the law. In the nine years the law had been in force, an average of 300 cases were reported each year, but we do not know how many ended up in court.

The problem is that society has not taken a clear stand against bird-trapping. Only a few weeks ago, a Famagusta deputy proposed that bird-trapping should cease being a criminal offence and that police should simply issue offenders an on-the-spot fine as they do in the case of parking violations and excessive speeding. Several Famagusta deputies had supported this move two years ago, but they failed to secure party support.

It was amusing to hear the deputy who attacked the activists because “they have no respect for our laws.” He never accused the bird-trappers of having no respect for our laws.