NATURAL EMIRATES Wildlife and Environment of the United Arab Emirates

When
the British explorer Wilfred Thesiger was completing his own epic journey
across the Empty Quarter in the early 1950s, as he so vividly describes
in his book Arabian Sands, he went to stay with Sheikh Zayed, who lived
at that time in the Al-Ain/Buraimi oasis. His first meeting with the man
who was to become ruler of Abu Dhabi and President of the United Arab Emirates
took place in humble, natural surroundings. Zayed was sitting on the ground
under an acacia tree outside the fort. Thesiger recalls: ‘He was a powerfully
built man of about thirty with a brown beard. He had a strong intelligent
face, with steady, observant eyes and his manner was quiet but masterful……He
wore a dagger and a cartridge belt; his rifle lay on the sand beside him.’
Thesiger commented that the locals held Zayed in great respect for he was
a true bedouin with all the local knowledge of the desert and wildlife
that the word implied.

Thesiger and his colleagues spent a month as Zayed’s guest and during
the visit they went hunting together with falcons. On one occasion a falcon
took off across the sand-hills and was eventually discovered by Zayed and
Thesiger who were on camel-back. After recovering the bird Zayed pointed
to some oily splashes on the ground, explaining to Thesiger that the houbara
bustard squirts this secretion at an attacking falcon, temporarily blinding
the predator. Thesiger goes on to describe encounter after encounter in
which Zayed quietly imparted his understanding of nature and his love of
wildlife. The experience made a powerful impression on the British explorer
and is beautifully recounted in his classic book.

In this year of triple celebrations for the UAE – 25 years of federation;
25 years of Sheikh Zayed’s Presidency and 30 years of his rule over the
emirate of Abu Dhabi, there has been great interest in retrospective analysis
of what the last quarter century has meant for the seven emirates that
comprise the UAE. It is clear from such analysis that its people have benefited
significantly from the efforts of a government committed to social development
and improvement of facilities in virtually every aspect of their lives.
However, one could easily argue that, given the country’s vast oil wealth,
it would have been inconceivable that this would not be the case. The fact
that this development has taken place in an atmosphere of respect for its
cultural heritage, and with a committed acknowledgement of the need to
conserve its natural world, is perhaps more impressive than the infrastructural
and socio-economic strides which have transformed the nation.

The
challenge of maintaining a balance between man and the environment has
been central to Sheikh Zayed’s entire period of stewardship. His conviction
that the deserts can be turned green again, as they once were before climate
changed to one of the driest on the globe, has led him to support a massive
campaign of afforestation and irrigation, utilizing waste water from urban
and industrial developments to make grass, crops and trees grow in place
of shifting sands. The results of this sustained endeavour are particularly
apparent as one flies into the UAE, hardly failing to observe from the
air that vast tracts of previously arid desert are now forested – more
than 130 million trees having been planted during the past 25 years. On
the ground, as one drives from airport to city centre, the solid greenery
of tree-lined freeways reinforces an impression of lush tropical vegetation
rather than arid desert, and even in the urban heartlands of Abu Dhabi
and Dubai one can hardly fail to be impressed by the carefully cultivated
parklands which have become a magnet for migrating birds and other native
wildlife.

But what of the natural Emirates, that land beyond city and highway,
far from the sight of high-rise buildings and the noise of vehicles? Is
there anything left of the Arabia that once existed, before oil was discovered
and before Zayed and his people decided to build a modern, developed country?
Can it be true that leopards still live among the mountains, or that the
Arabian tahr, until recently thought to be extinct in the UAE, still survives
in isolated ‘hidden’ valleys, or indeed that the elusive sea-cow or dugong
still swims among its sheltered offshore islands? Just how successful has
this Arabian country been at balancing the demands of man against those
of wildlife?

Natural Emirates, published by Trident Press as part of the UAE’s Silver
Jubilee celebrations, addresses such questions directly in a series of
well informed, beautifully illustrated chapters on the UAE’s wildlife,
written by experts in their individual fields. You will be relieved to
read that leopards do indeed still live in the UAE, in larger numbers than
were previously estimated, but still not sufficient to ensure their future
survival. Protection of the leopard has provided a rallying call for a
grass-roots conservation programme spearheaded by the Arabian Leopard Trust
which has established a captive breeding pair of leopards in the UAE and
is working towards creation of a reserve for their protection in the wild.

After a carcass of a tahr was found near a water pool on Jebel Hafit
in 1982, it was generally thought that the tahr was extinct outside of
Oman. That remained the view until a 1995 survey of possible leopard habitats
undertaken by Chris and Tilde Stuart, and organized by the Arabian Leopard
Trust. The Stuarts are knowledgeable trackers and naturalists who have
honed their skills over many years of fieldwork in Africa, Arabia and in
other regions. Whilst clambering along a ledge in the Shimailiyyah mountains
of the UAE their attention was drawn by the sound of a falling pebble on
the opposite side of the ravine. Not only did they catch sight of an adult
and young tahr, but they also took the first ever photographs of live tahr
in the Emirates. Seen against the dark purplish rocks, the tahr were almost
invisible. Reproduced in Natural Emirates, this picture seems to speak
out from the page. The adult tahr, facing the camera, appeals to us all
to respect the wilderness in which it still survives.

Dugongs have been hunted in this region for thousands of years, as evidenced
by the presence of their skeletal remains in ancient middens and at burial
sites. Dugongs in the UAE mostly inhabit the shallow waters around the
islands of Murawah and Bu Tina to the west of Abu Dhabi, but their range
extends further west to the border of Qatar and beyond, and there are still
occasional sightings to the east around Jebel Ali, Umm al-Qaiwain and Ras
al-Khaimah. The UAE’s rich and extensive seagrass beds are vital to the
continued survival of this sea-mammal in the Gulf region. Natural Emirates
not only provides us with data on the survival of dugongs in the UAE but
also backs it up with some rare photographs of them taken during a marine
survey of Abu Dhabi’s offshore waters.

As
one turns the pages of Natural Emirates it is hard to be unimpressed by
the sheer variety of wildlife that the country supports. Despite the demands
of industrial and infrastructural development, habitats have been preserved
and nature has been respected to a far greater extent than one finds in
many other countries. Whilst the mangrove has often been regarded as an
annoying encumberance, fair game for removal or infilling of its shallow
habitat, in the Emirates large areas of mangrove have not only been preserved
but fresh stands are constantly being planted, creating new habitats for
marine life and for many birds and other animals. Meanwhile, the UAE’s
oldest mangroves, at Khor Kalba on the east coast, remain home of the endemic
sub-species of white-collared kingfisher (Halcyon chloris kalbaensis,)
one of the rarest birds in the world.

Whilst no single book can cover the entire subject of the UAE’s natural
world, Natural Emirates makes a bold attempt to present a balanced picture
of what is to be found there, offering as much information on insects and
reptiles, for example as for the more popular birds and mammals. Chapters
on geology and palaeontology are refreshingly written for the general reader
whilst retaining their scientific accuracy and the chapter on plantlife
is compiled more with a view to encouraging the amateur naturalist to explore
the wonders of local flora than to provide a blow by blow taxonomic account
of individual species.

Above all however, this book is a visual celebration of a segment of
Arabia’s natural world that has received relatively little media attention
in the past, but which clearly merits a much greater focus in future. Award
winning photographers, Jens and Hanne Eriksen were especially commissioned
to photograph for the book. In addition many of the authors have contributed
their own unique UAE wildlife photographs, covering subjects as diverse
as snakes shedding their skin to sperm whales breaching, and you have a
book that will not only impress its readers but which will play a positive
role in supporting the conservation of the UAE’s natural world for future
generations to experience and enjoy.