More than 15 million young mangrove trees have been planted in Abu Dhabi.
The Environment Agency – Abu Dhabi (EAD) has said it will continue to strive for the restoration of Abu Dhabi’s mangroves.
The agency’s future plan for the mangroves involves developing cost-effective, technology and innovation-led mangrove restoration programmes, restoring lost, degraded and potential mangrove areas with the best international practices and engaging stakeholders and involving public and private entities in mangrove conservation and restoration initiatives.
The announcement of the agency’s aims comes as it reflected on its achievements so far on International Day for the Conservation of the Mangrove Ecosystem.
In February of 2022, in partnership with Etihad Airways, the national airline of the UAE, EAD launched the Etihad Mangrove Forest to provide guests, corporate accounts and partners the ability to adopt mangroves in Abu Dhabi to help reduce their carbon footprint.
The Etihad Mangrove Forest is the culmination of multiple joint programmes between Etihad, EAD, Jubail Island, The Storey Group, and other partners to support UAE mangrove conservation projects, and develop new carbon sinks and natural resources to absorb carbon from the atmosphere following the principle of: “Abu Dhabi for the World”.
The agency also announced the Blue Carbon Environmental and Social Responsibility Project, which aims to protect mangroves in the emirate.
The project was implemented in collaboration with ENGIE – the low carbon emission service provider- and in partnership with Distant Imagery, which specialises in drone engineering and restoring blue carbon, and involved striving to plant more than 35,000 mangrove seeds in the Mirfa Lagoon in Abu Dhabi, using highly innovative drone planting technology. The success rate exceeded 35 per cent
Also, during COP26 last year, in Glasgow, the UAE Minister of Climate Change and Environment, announced a nationwide plan to plant 100 million mangroves by 2030.
Protecting mangroves is essential as they help regulate the world’s largest environmental problem, climate change. Not only do they store carbon, they act as a protected home to hundreds of bird and marine species ? #ConservationOfMangroves#EnvironmentAbuDhabi pic.twitter.com/sW5FcKJ1r4
— The Environment Agency – Abu Dhabi (@EADTweets) July 25, 2022
Abu Dhabi has the oldest known mangrove restoration and afforestation initiatives anywhere in the world, with some places in the emirate being nearly 100 years old.
In 2015, mangroves occupied an estimated 14,117 hectares in scattered locations throughout the emirate. During the past 10 years, at least 15 million young mangroves have been planted along the coast of Abu Dhabi.
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