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UK allows songbird slaughter on Cyprus military base Updated for 2026

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The numbers of trapped songbirds illegally killed on a British military base in Cyprus last autumn reached an estimated 900,000 birds.

That’s the highest level recorded in 12 years, according to the latest RSPB-funded research of trapping activity on the Dhekelia Sovereign Base Area, close to the tourist hotspot of Ayia Napa.

Following the dramatic increase in bird deaths, the RSPB and BirdLife Cyprus – the RSPB’s BirdLife International partner on the island – are urging the Base Area authorities to continue the positive start made late last year to clamp down on the illegal trappers.

Small-scale trapping of songbirds for human consumption on Cyprus was practiced for many centuries, but it has been illegal on the island for 40 years, when it was outlawed in 1974.

Comparative figures for the Republic of Cyprus reveal that illegal bird trapping is still a considerable issue, but the figures have reduced since 2002.

An huge organised criminal enterprise

BirdLife Cyprus and the RSPB have been monitoring illegal songbird trapping activity on the British military base at Dhekelia since 2002. The figures for last autumn reveal that 2014 was the worst year on record, by far, with an estimated 900,000 birds being killed.

This is equivalent to almost 15,000 songbirds a day during the September-October period. The latest figures are now three times higher than when the monitoring started in 2002.

Step one is to clear planted acacia scrub, which the trappers use as cover for their illegal activities while on the military base. The scrub also attracts vast numbers of migrating songbirds, moving between Europe and Africa each autumn.

Extensive areas of illegally-planted avenues of acacia scrub have been allowed to be grown by criminals on MoD land. This illegal bird-killing infrastructure is used by the trappers as cover to attract the birds and to set their nets.

Unfortunately, organised crime now seems to be driving this illegal activity which is thought to be worth millions of Euros every autumn from the songbirds the trappers kill on British Ministry of Defence (MoD) land and then sell to consume illegally in the Republic.

UK must act before another massacre this autumn

RSPB’s International Director Dr Tim Stowe said: “The report highlights the illegal trapping of songbirds on the British military base has escalated and we are urging the Ministry of Defence and the Base Area authorities to resolve it before this autumn’s migration.

“Such extensive illegal activity requires all the Cyprus authorities to work together to combat it, and the Base Areas’ contribution should be zero-tolerance towards illegal bird trapping.

“We were pleased that the Base Area authorities have started to remove acacia scrub last December.  We believe the scale of illegal trapping requires continuing and sustained action, and we’ll continue to offer our support.”

The RSPB welcomes the signing by the Base Area authorities of a Cyprus Strategic Action Plan on illegal bird trapping.

BirdLife Cyprus and the RSPB believe that the Sovereign Base Area authorities should now develop a plan to remove all the illegally-planted and non-native avenues of acacia on MoD land as rapidly as possible.

Dr Clairie Papazoglou is the Executive Director of BirdLife Cyprus. She said: “Acacia isn’t a native plant in Cyprus, so the planting of extensive stands of this shrub by the trappers is a highly visible symbol of their flagrant disregard for anti-trapping laws.

“In fact, you can see these plantations from space. By removing the acacia, the Sovereign Base Area authorities would send a clear signal that they will not tolerate the slaughter of birds on British bases.”

A dainty dish to set before a king?

The songbirds are trapped to provide the main ingredient for the local and expensive delicacy of ‘ambelopoulia’, where a plate of songbirds, such as blackcaps or robins, is served to restaurant diners. The illegality of the practice and the high profits are attracting the attention of organised crime gangs.

Today, most trappers will use long lines of nearly invisible netting, known as mist nets. They attract birds into them on an industrial-scale by playing birdsong to lure them in. Traditionally, trappers had relied solely on lime-sticks, where stems of pomegranate are coated in a locally-manufactured ‘lime’ and are then placed in trees and bushes.

Passing birds become stuck on the lime-coated sticks where they fall easy prey to trappers. Whilst lime-sticks are still used in many areas, mist-netting between planted avenues of acacia has now taken the slaughter to a whole new level.

Since 2002, the monitoring program has recorded over 150 different bird species which have become trapped in nets or on lime-sticks. Cyprus has two songbirds found nowhere else in the world: the Cyprus warbler and the Cyprus wheatear. Both of these songbirds are impacted by illegal trapping.

 




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The battle for Mosul Dam: a new age of water wars beckons Updated for 2026

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Exactly a year ago, the world was wrestling with the possibility of another US-led military assault on an Arab state, following the horrific gas attacks in Damascus, Syria.

When US military action did come in early August this year, it was in northern Iraq against the Islamic State (IS) which evolved out of the Syrian civil war.

In the context of the spiralling humanitarian crisis, swift and co-ordinated IS advances, and single acts of astonishing barbarity, ongoing US attacks have become focused on control of a dam.

It’s the latest and most visible chapter in the world’s growing water crisis and confirmation of water’s central role in conflicts.

11 cubic kilometres of water

The Mosul Dam blocks the Tigris River south of the Turkish border, forming a reservoir 11 billion cubic metres in volume – the fourth largest in the Middle East.

Much of the military rhetoric has focused on the potential for deliberate destruction of the structure, releasing catastrophic flood waves reaching 4.6m high as far downstream as Baghdad, 350km away. But politically and economically it is the control of the dam’s hydroelectricity which gives it priority.

Engineers, meanwhile, noting the reservoir’s unorthodox setting (on water-soluble karstic geology ) fear an accidental breach of the dam if vital geotechnical work, including continuous injection of impermeable grout, is not properly maintained.

Water as political and military power

Strategically, the use of the dam to determine water levels and supplies to large parts of the country makes it the largest prize in what security analysts describe as a “battle for control of water“ which many observers see as defining IS’s aims in Iraq.

This plan was evident as early as June this year, following extensive flooding caused by the deliberate closure of the captured Nuaimiyah Dam west of Baghdad.

But this is not the first time water has been used as a weapon in the ‘Fertile Crescent’ at the confluence of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers.

Saddam Hussein targeted water resources during the Iran-Iraq War and his oppression of the Marsh Arabs in southern Iraq during the 1990s centred on the drainage of 6,000 km2 of wetlands, destroying a subsistence economy perhaps 10,000 years old.

This was a “war by other means”, according to engineer Azzam Alwash, who won the 2013 Goldman Environmental prize for his post-2003 work to re-establish the marshlands.

The tactical use of water supplies in war dates back almost as far as civilisation itself. Limiting and depleting water supplies has been used as a siege weapon throughout history. The ‘Dambusters’ are even part of the UK’s popular cultural memory of World War Two.

Conflicting opinions

But is the current zeitgeist – that this century will be marked by wars dominated by water – representative of a real or imagined threat?

The UN was widely seen to endorsed this thesis in its 2009 World Water Development Report.

Shortly after, an opinion article in the journal Nature roundly rejected it, claiming instead that “inequitable access to water resources is a result of…broader conflict and power dynamics: it does not itself cause war”, and concluding that wars over water are a myth which distract from a globally progressive approach to co-operation in water management.

So which position is correct? Mark Zeitoun, an expert on Middle East water politics, has developed a theory of “hydro-hegemony” in which control over water supplies is an intrinsic component of unequal power relationships.

This is perhaps nowhere better illustrated than in relations between Israel and its neighbours which shift constantly and all-too-visibly from armed to unarmed conflicts, encompassing unilateral annexation of both land and water resources as well as uneasy bilateral agreements.

In this view, water is an integral component of all kinds of conflict, from cultural antagonism to military aggression. It follows that as global demand for water grows and areas already experiencing water stress suffer further under predicted climate change, then the importance of water in tensions at all scales will grow proportionally.

A fundamental human need

Water is at the heart of many conflicts worldwide, whether between nations such as Egypt and Ethiopia, where diplomatic tensions are high regarding the construction of the massive Grand Renaissance Dam on the Nile; between developing world communities and multinational corporations, for example Coca-Cola in India; or between regions within countries, such as in the western US where various states are in legal battles over the Rio Grande.

We should remain confident that the strong frameworks of national and international law will continue to confine many of these conflicts to council chambers and diplomatic conferences.

However, where these mechanisms break down then a shift on the spectrum of conflict towards violent confrontations, shaped by our fundamental human need for water, does seem possible if not inevitable.

In the past months in northern Iraq, from an escalating Syrian crisis in which water stress likely played a destabilising part, we may have seen the first shots fired.

 

 

Jonathan Bridge is Lecturer in Environmental Engineering at the University of Liverpool. He does not work for, consult to, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has no relevant affiliations.

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

The Conversation

 




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