Introduction

Conservation of the environment and wildlife research is afforded a high priority both by the federal Government and in the individual emirates, with the work of the Federal Environmental Agency, FEA, being supplemented at a local level by Abu Dhabi's Environmental Research and Wildlife Development Agency, ERWDA, and the Environment and Wildlife Management Department, EWM, of the President's Private Department and Sharjah's Environment and Protected Areas Authority, EPAA, as well as by smaller sections in the other emirates. The FEA is responsible for the implementation of legislation on environmental protection, but fieldwork and other research is undertaken primarily by ERWDA, EWM and EPAA, as well as by non-governmental organization, such as the Emirates Natural History Groups in Abu Dhabi, Al Ain and Dubai and the Sharjah-based Arabian Leopard Trust. Plans for a number of protected areas (desert, marine and mountains) are being drawn up while conservation work includes captive breeding programmes for a number of endangered animals, including the Arabian Oryx, the Arabian leopard and the houbara bustard.

WILDLIFE FILMS

While such conferences will no doubt focus considerable media attention on the UAE's impressive strides in the field of environment affairs, there has already been an increase in media attention with both national and international broadcasting bodies turning to the UAE for wildlife and environmental content. The BBC filming team for David Atten borough's hugely successful Life of Birds series visited the UAE in order to film crab plovers. Meanwhile CNN included several programmes in its Earth Matters series on UAE topics. The programmes, excerpts of a major film made for ERWDA, entitled ‘ Environmental Oasis’, included a review of environmental research, incorporating studies of the botany of the desert and of breeding colonies of seabirds on Qarnein, as well as examples of the positive aspects of man's relationship with wildlife and the environment, such as the captive breeding programme for endangered wildlife on the island of Sîr BanîYâs and the utilization of surplus recycled sewage for the creation of a wildlife reserve and bird sanctuary at the Al Wathba lakes near Abu Dhabi, site of the flamingo breeding colony.  One programme screened in September 1998 in CNN's Solution Seekers segment dealt with ERWDA's satellite tracking programme for marine turtles. As the television film so beautifully illustrated, small satellite transmitters are fixed on the backs of green turtles in order to monitor their movements from the coastal waters of the UAE as they swim out into the southern Arabian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman and further into the Indian Ocean. The turtle tagging programme, like the houbara and falcon tagging programmes also managed by ERWDA, break new ground in researching precise requirements for habitat protection as part of conservation programmes aimed at individual species. As a consequence of this and associated research work, protection of the nesting beaches of the two species of turtle that are known to breed in the Emirates – the green turtle and the hawksbill – has been accorded a high priority by ERWDA. Meanwhile, ERWDA's Deputy Chairman, Sheikh Hamdan bin Zayed Al Nahyan, has personally enforced a tough protection programme on the offshore island of Qarnein, northwest of Abu Dhabi. Mainland breeding sites include the coastline at Jazirat al-Hamra, in Ras  al-Khaimah.

A second CNN programme in the Earth Matters slot comprised a short feature on the work of the Sharjah Breeding Center for Endangered Arabian Wildlife. It  included exclusive film of the young leopard cub born at the center last year. It is believed that there are only approximately 100 Arabian leopards left in the wild, making it one of the rarest animals in the world.

The third programme in the CNN series, screened in April 1999, reviewed the campaign inspired and implemented by Sheikh Zayed to protect the environment through a major a forestation programme and proactive wildlife conservation policy. The short programme drew attention worldwide to the country's successful efforts at protecting the Arabian Oryx, the Arabian leopard and the satellite tagging and tracking programmes of houbara bustard, the saker falcon and the green turtle. The Al Wathba bird reserve and flamingo sanctuary near the capital was also featured.

LEOPARD BREEDING

The Arabian leopard breeding project, like that for houbara bustard, has drawn on technologies that have been employed in other areas of bloodstock management, such as with race horses and camels. Animals that may not otherwise be successful in raising young have had sperm frozen to be used later in test-tube fertilizations of eggs removed from females. Embryos have then been implanted into females where they have grown normally. Given the very small number of surviving Arabian leopards such techniques have become necessary to ensure that every avenue is followed to maximize breeding success. However, the young Arabian leopards that can now be seen at the Sharjah Breeding Center have been raised from natural mating and normal births. Nevertheless, the center has successfully retrieved sperm from two male leopards who underwent surgery at the breeding center. This vital genetic material has been frozen in liquid nitrogen. In a parallel operation, some of this sperm was used to fertilize two over moved from a female Arabian leopard which was treated with hormones and darted with tranquillizers to allow the procedure to take place. At the time of writing the resultant embryos are being stored in liquid nitrogen, awaiting future implantation. The Sharjah Breeding Center contains a virtually complete collection of Arabian fauna, with the exception of insects, some of the smaller invertebrates, and birds. The center, situated 30 kilometers in the desert south of Sharjah city, was opened in 1997 by HH Dr Sheikh Sultan bin Mohammed Al Qasimi, Ruler of Sharjah, and is managed by the Environment and Protected Areas Authority of Sharjah. In addition to successful breeding of the Arabian leopard, the center has also raised sand cats, Gordon's wildcat and a large number of other species. 

WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT PROGRAMME

During the period under review the Private Department of the President's Office has carried out a major restructuring of its own wildlife management programme under the direction of its Environment and Wildlife Management Department (EWM). The department is responsible for management of wildlife on Sîr Banî Yâs island as well as reserves or sanctuaries at the Sea Palace, Rawdat al-Reef, Al Jarf area (Hizam Al Ghabat), Bida Khalifa and Ghantoot area. It is particularly concerned with conser-vation of the houbara bustard and breeding programmes on Arabian oryx, sand gazelle, mountain gazelle, Arabian tahr and other threatened wildlife species.

WILDLIFE RESERVES

Environmental regulations, public awareness and wildlife breeding programmes form only part of the measures undertaken in wildlife conservation. Of equal or even greater importance is the protection of natural habitats in the form of reserves. Sîr Banî Yâs is a prime example of such a reserves. There are however a number of other reserves are already established in the UAE, and more are under consideration. Al Sammaliah island, situated 4 kilometers miles northeast of Abu Dhabi city, and its surrounding waters were recently declared a protected zone and operational base for the Commission for Environmental Research (CER), part of the Emirates Heritage Club which has begun a series of initiatives, most notably to help preserve marine turtles.  The Commission is also developing a huge mangrove plantation as part of a research project in association with the EU. The oldest part of the island, which has been formed by joining several smaller islands together by dredged sand, is thought to predate Islamic times. In addition to Al Sammaliah, the CER operates in three other areas of Abu Dhabi:

at Masnoaa island, close to Futaisi island, on the mainland coast at Qarn al-Aysh and a desert site at Al Ajban.

The UAE's conservation work with turtles received unexpected encouragement as a result of recent commercial development projects in which beaches that had been smoothed off for cosmetic reasons attracted nesting turtles. The observation indicated the possibility that availability of suitable nesting beaches could act as a controlling factor in the region's turtle population.

Arabian leopard
The Arabian leopard, Panthera pardus nimr, is one of the rarest animals in the world, with only around 100 individuals believed to survive in remote areas of Arabia, in the Hajar Mountains of the United Arab Emirates and Oman, and in the south-western mountains of Yemen and Saudi Arabia. Smaller and paler than its African cousin, it has adapted over a period of thousands of years to the increasingly arid conditions in the peninsula, but has been driven by hunting into the remote mountain fastnesses. With its prey, including ibex and gazelle also declining in numbers, wild leopards now sometimes take goats and sheep, prompting more persecution. Selected as a flagship species for conservation by groups such as the Arabian Leopard Trust, based in Sharjah, it is now also the focus of a captive breeding programme, notably by Sharjah's Breeding Centre for Endangered Arabian Wildlife. Survival in the wild, however, remains under threat, and there are probably no more than two or three adult animals surviving in the UAE. Recent genetic work at the Centre suggests that there may be two distinct sub-species in Arabia.