The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) has named the Environment Agency – Abu Dhabi (EAD) among its top 10 global initiatives for restoring and rehabilitating coastal marine ecosystems. The announcement was made on the sidelines of the UN Biodiversity Conference (CBD COP15), held in Montreal, Canada from 13-17 December 2022.
His Highness Sheikh Hamdan bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Ruler’s Representative in Al Dhafra Region and Chairman of the Board of Directors of EAD, praised the emirate’s efforts to protect the biodiversity of Abu Dhabi’s coastal and marine environments.
Sheikh Hamdan said: “Abu Dhabi has confirmed its leadership and succeeded in strengthening its global position in the field of preserving the environment and protecting species, as well as implementing plans and programmes to restore and rehabilitate them. We have worked in several directions to sustain our marine environments and have succeeded in restoring our fish stocks, strengthened our plans to plant and rehabilitate mangroves, and launched the region’s largest coral reef rehabilitation project – all of which further emphasises the emirate’s important role at both a local and global level in the conservation of species and their ecosystems.”
EAD’s programmes were selected following evaluations conducted in line with UNEP’s standards and requirements, and were viewed as some of the most promising and ambitious projects of their kind and pioneering models at the global level. The selection was made from more than 150 nominations from different countries, and approved by 70 government agencies worldwide as a result of EAD’s outstanding efforts in rehabilitating the habitats of Abu Dhabi’s coastal and marine areas for endangered marine species and local communities.
