Oman Wires It's all about Oman
The mangrove plantation campaign was performed in numerous locations of the governorate, stated Eng Said bin Nasser al Abdali, director of Environment and Climate Affairs, North Batinah. “The ministry has planted 100,000 saplings in three khors [creeks]. They include Khor Shinasand and Khor Wadiat in the wilayat of Shinas, and Khor Khabourah in the wilayat of Khabourah.”
The Department of Environmental Affairs in North Batinah conducts numerous environmental awareness campaigns amongst members of the neighborhood on the value of mangrove trees and their advantages to humans. It also discusses the primary aspects for the development of this sort of trees and some of the threats and dangers faced by them.
Eng Abdali added, “The campaigns of cultivation and rehabilitation of the web sites of mangroves trees falls inside the current project in between the sultanate and the Japan International Cooperation Agency. The project began in 2001 and aims to cultivate 1mn seedlings of mangrove trees on sultanate’s coasts inside 20 years. The initiative is element of the ministry’s campaign to plant 1mn mangrove saplings by the finish of 2022.
“The ministry has already planted about 680,000 saplings in 30 khors in various coastal areas of the sultanate. The ministry also opened four nurseries to produce mangrove seedlings. Two of them are in Qurum Nature Reserve in Muscat, while others are in Khor Batah in Sur in South Batinah and in Qurm Grand Reserve in Salalah in Dhofar governorate.”
Wetlands are at present exposed to numerous environmental pressures such as urban encroachment, landfill, waste, oil, pollution of numerous varieties, soil erosion, chemical pesticides employed to spray rainfed plants and numerous human activities, destruction due to flood water flow, climate alter, and so forth, he stated.
“The sultanate has joined the Convention on Wetlands (Ramsar Convention) which includes 170 countries around the world. The convention aims at the conservation and sustainable use of wetlands through actions taken at the national level and international cooperation for sustainable development throughout the world. The convention covers many types of wetlands such as swamps, lakes and valleys, mangroves, coral reefs, artificial wetlands such as fish ponds, wet fields for growing rice.”
Information Source: Muscat Daily
