DUBAI: The UAE is the latest country to join the UK-initiated Global Ocean Alliance. The Alliance is a group of 32 countries working to protect the ocean and improve the livelihoods of coastal communities. The core goal is to safeguard at least 30 percent of the world’s oceans by 2030 through marine protected areas. The UAE is the first Middle Eastern country to endorse the target.
Dr. Abdullah Belhaif Al Nuaimi, Cabinet Member and Minister of Climate Change and Environment, said that collective action is a must to stop the deterioration of ocean’s health as a result of climate change, pollution, and overfishing.
The Rt Hon Lord Zac Goldsmith, the UK’s Minister for Pacific and the Environment, welcomed the UAE to the Alliance. He commended on UAE’s steadfast commitment to protecting the ocean.
Joining the Global Ocean Alliance and UAE’s dedication to marine conservation resulted in its ranking in the Ocean Health Index 2019 as having the healthiest waters on the Asian continent. The country uses an integrated approach to focus on working with traditional coastal communities to design ambitious regulations that increase fish stocks. UAE imposed permanent and seasonal fishing, trade bans on important local species, limited the number of fishing boats in operation, prohibited certain types of fishing equipment and methods, and specified the minimum lengths of fish allowed to be caught.
The first marine plastic litter regulations in the GCC region will be introduced in Abudhabi in 2021. It addresses threat to human health and marine life.
UAE has 16 marine protected areas that accounting 12 per cent of its marine territory, compared to the international average of 7.5 per cent. It maintains global leadership in the Marine Protected Areas category of the Environmental Performance Index, EPI. Innovative projects to restore marine habitats, like the experimental cultivation of 24 heat- and climate-resilient coral species, building the world’s largest coral reef garden home to 1.5 million corals, and planting of thousands of mangroves are also adopted.
Governments will convene to agree on new global conservation targets under the Convention for Biological Diversity, CBD, in February 2021 for the 30by30 target. The UAE will work closely with the Alliance, the High Ambition Coalition, HAC, for Nature and People, another group of governments to enshrine the 30by30 target.
UAE hosted the World Ocean Summit in 2019, and in September 2020 in partnership with Fiji, Kenya, Norway, Palau, Portugal, and Sweden and organised the United Nations General Assembly roundtable on the ocean agenda for 15 ministers, 15 agency executives, and five youth representatives.
The inaugural edition of Oceanology International Middle East will take place in Abu Dhabi in 2021 to strengthen collective action around the protection of oceans and their valuable resources.
Source: WAM
