Don't overexploit fish, warns marine life expert

The big fish at the Environment Agency - Abu Dhabi stand at Adihex screening educational marine biodiversity documentaries.

Hundreds of school children took over the Abu Dhabi International Hunting and Equestrian Exhibition (Adihex) on Thursday with the vast majority of them being most impressed by the Environment Agency - Abu Dhabi's (EAD) stand.
"My favourite part was going inside the fish and watching the movie," said Mariam Al Ali, an eight-year-old school girl from Abu Dhabi.
The big fish, a big white canvas under a 'sea' of light blue small panels, with a sitting area in its "belly" for viewing educational marine biodiversity documentaries proved one of the most popular attractions at EAD's stand.
"Only 12 species of fish make up 80 per cent of all fish that you find in the markets in the UAE. And if we keep overexploiting fish at the rate we do now, in a few decades' some species will be extinct, hamour included," warned Ayesha Yousef Al Blooshi, director of marine biodiversity at EAD.
"The message we try to send across here at Adihex is that people should avoid fishing during April and May, which is the reproduction season for most fish species. Also, avoid catching fish that is smaller than 45 centimetres, which is too young and not yet able to reproduce and fish bigger than 75 centimetres, as fish that big is most effective for reproduction," she added.
During the four days of Adihex, EAD is raising awareness not just on marine and land biodiversity, but air status, too.
"Abu Dhabi's air quality is pretty good! We have 20 air quality monitoring stations throughout the emirate, two of which are mobile ones," said Ruqaya Mohammed, manager of EAD's air quality, noise and climate change section.
"We also have two monitoring stations in the desert, one in Liwa and one in Al Ain. We called them background station as they monitor the ideal air quality since there is no human activity in the desert," she explained.
"In terms of man-made pollution like emissions released from traffic or industrial productions, there is quite a difference between urban and desert stations, but the readings are usually higher in the desert in terms of Particular Matter (PM), which is natural dust," added Mohammed.
According to EAD, PM is the biggest polluting agent in Abu Dhabi Emirate and it varies not so much from summer to winter season, but from the storm season to the less windy one.
"We have two storm seasons throughout the year, one in July-August and one in April-March, when we tend to have most of the big wind storms," pointed out Mohammed. Out of Abu Dhabi's 67,340 square kilometres area, EAD monitors the air quality of 86.7 per cent of it.
Additionally, EAD is showcasing at Adihex the Scimitar Horned Oryx reintroduction programme as part of its long-term commitment to sustaining biodiversity for future generations, inspired by the late Shaikh Zayed's legacy and efforts to protect endangered species and sustain them in their natural habitat. Before the end of the year, EAD plans to re-introduce this endangered Oryx into its Sub-Saharan habitat after years of research and rehabilitation programme.
Last, but not least, EAD is also running presentations to inform the public on its role in regulating hunting to ensure a balance between the practice - which is deeply engrained in Emirati heritage - and the long-term interest of maintaining healthy and viable populations of wild animals.
EAD experts are on hand to explain all highlighted environmental projects at Adihex, which include a trip down memory lane, the Vote Bu Tinah! campaign - the tiny island off the Marawah Marine Biosphere Reserve that made it to the Top 14 out of 440 candidates in the Natural 7 Wonders of the World competition back in 2011.
A haven for endangered hawksbill turtles, ospreys, pink flamingos, dugongs and cormorants, Bu Tinah remains a closed island to the public and any approach of a motorboat particularly to preserve its rich wildlife.
silvia@khaleejtimes.com

• UAE
• Abu Dhabi