DOHA: The Ministry of Environment and Climate Change has opened the 2024 sea turtle nesting season and organised a cleaning and rehabilitation campaign for Fuwairit Beach, in the presence of Minister of Environment and Climate Change HE Dr Abdullah bin Abdulaziz bin Turki Al Subaie.
Several officials from the Ministry of Environment and Climate Change, and representatives of participating entities, in addition to 300 volunteers, participated in the campaign, which was supervised by the Wildlife Development Department, which carried out the process of cleaning and rehabilitating the beach.
The Minister of Environment and Climate Change toured, during which he inspected the integrity of the ecosystems of the area designated for the project to protect endangered hawksbill sea turtles. He also reviewed the progress of work related to protecting and preserving the terrestrial and marine environment in the region.
In press statements on this occasion, Dr Al Subaie stressed the importance of the project to protect endangered hawksbill sea turtles, which the ministry started in 2003, in cooperation with Qatar Petroleum and Qatar University. He noted that during the past five years, more than 50,000 baby turtles were released, which contributed to an increase in the number of these creatures in the Qatari marine environment.
Regarding efforts to protect biodiversity in the country, he said: "Given the richness of the local environment with a large number of rare plants and animals, which are considered a national heritage that must be sustained and preserved for future generations, work is currently underway on the final stages of launching the biodiversity database in Qatar. It aims to preserve biodiversity data and information, and create maps of the ecosystem to identify important sites for biodiversity in the country.”
He added that the project includes establishing a knowledge management platform, an electronic platform, which allows partners and decision-makers to benefit from database information in national development and biodiversity processes, as part of the Qatar Digital Government strategy 2023-2025.
On the sidelines of the opening of the season, the Minister of Environment and Climate Change honoured the entities participating in the campaign and the opening of the turtle nesting season. The list of entities included QatarEnergy, Qatar University, Qatar Red Crescent, Al Thakhira Youth Center, and Seashore Company.
In a parallel context, Dr Ibrahim Abdul Latif Al Muslimani, Assistant Undersecretary for Natural Reserves Affairs, pointed out that the hawksbill turtle protection project is one of the pioneering projects in preserving biodiversity in the country, as the project contributed to increasing the numbers of these creatures and avoiding the risk of extinction, noting that the risk of the disappearance of a component of the environment or the extinction of its organisms, which leads to an imbalance in the food chain, which in turn causes severe damage to the local environment.
During these days of each year, groups of hawksbill turtles go to nest on the northern beaches of the country, which include the beaches of Fuwairit, Ras Laffan, Al Maruna, Al Ghariya, Al Huwaila, Al Jassasiya, and Al Mafjar, as well as the islands of Umm Tais, Ras Rukn, and Sharawah, Halul. The season is from early April to late June, and the hatching process takes place two months after the nesting process.
