Dugong conservation gets support

The Environment Agency - Abu Dhabi (EAD) and Total United Arab Emirates (Total UAE) organised a ceremony marking the extension of sponsorship for EAD's Dugong Conservation Programme, which has been sponsored by Total since 1999. During the ceremony, Razan Khalifa Al Mubarak, secretary general of EAD, said: "A significant proportion of the world's dugongs occur in the Arabian Gulf. About 40 per cent of this population occurs in Abu Dhabi waters, making the UAE significant in terms of regional and global dugong conservation." She said, "Since 1999, the Environment Agency-Abu Dhabi has conducted detailed studies of the local dugong population. Overall, these studies have helped us to better understand dugong behaviour. The first phase of these studies helped us obtain information about the abundance, distribution and the conservation status of dugongs in the UAE". "The second phase helped us understand more about the biological and ecological aspects. Threats to the dugong population were identified by investigating causes of dugong mortality as well as habitat degradation, fragmentation and loss," she said.