Founded in 1977, following a talk on dugongs given by a visiting
scientist to a small group of interested expatriate residents
of Abu Dhabi, the Emirates Natural History Group is the oldest
and largest of the voluntary societies in the United Arab Emirates
dealing with natural history. One of its former chairmen, and
a member of the Editorial Board of its journal, Tribulus, Peter
Hellyer, tells of how it all began and what it has achieved.
Like many other such organisations in the Arabian Gulf the Emirates
Natural History Group grew, somewhat indirectly, out of the country’s
oil industry. Its founder, J.N.B.’Bish’ Brown, originally worked
for the Kuwait Oil Company where he was an active member of the
Ahmadi Natural History Group, before moving to work for the main
offshore oil company in Abu Dhabi, ADMA-OPCO, in the mid- nineteen
seventies.
Brown and the similarly minded friends and colleagues who quickly
gathered around him were characterised by a typically deep and
abiding interest in the natural history and archaeology of the
country in which they were living. Some followed particular interests
such as birds or butterflies whilst others, like Brown himself,
were polymaths interested in a whole range of subjects. None of
them were trained scientists, and some came to an interest in
natural history only once they arrived in the Emirates, though
over the years, a few developed very considerable scientific skills
and knowledge.
All recognised, however, that knowledge was not that essential
for a beginner, and recognised too that the Emirates, both desert
and mountains, were largely virgin territory from the viewpoint
of studying natural history. Local inhabitants, particularly the
fishermen and Bedouin families, knew a great deal about local
wildlife, but theirs was primarily the knowledge of the hunter,
rather than that of the natural historian. Thus, while some early
ENHG members simply took part in activities in order to get a
little more from their weekend forays into the mountains and sands,
others recognised that they had the opportunity, should they wish
to do so, of making a very real contribution to beginning a study
of the UAE’s natural history.
Today there is considerable interest in and support for the group’s
activities from all levels, including direct personal support
from President Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan al Nahyan. With the creation
in early 1993 of the Federal Environmental Agency, charged with
overseeing environmental protection and research on behalf of
the Government of the UAE, the torch originally raised by the
Emirates Natural History Group back in the 1970’s is now being
passed on to local hands, something that was always the long-term
intention of the group’s founders.
From its inception, the Group placed a strong emphasis on the
need for members to record their sightings of birds, mammals,
fish, reptiles, flora, insects and so on, quite apart from an
archaeological interest. Over the course of years, a very substantial
amount of data has been collected that has already proved its
value to science. Take for example the society’s bird records.
The Group’s bird-watchers have created a database that now has
well over 20,000 records of both common and rare species. Whilst
no endemic species have been found an endemic sub-species of the
white-collared kingfisher (Halcyon chloris kalbaensis) has been
known since the late nineteen sixties, and other species may yet
be identified. Other important discoveries include internationally
important breeding colonies of the Socotra cormorant (Phalacrocorax
nigrogularis), and the crab plover (Dromas ardeola), as well as
the first Arabian breeding record for over seventy years of the
greater flamingo (Phoenicopterus ruber), while a number of Asian
firsts have been recorded.
Over the last few years Abu Dhabi’s Government funded National
Avian Research Centre has brought professional ornithologists
to the Emirates for the first time. NARC will eventually take
over the task of maintaining a national avian database, and is
already collaborating closely with Group members both on recording
and on an incipient bird ringing programme.
Significant contributions to our knowledge of the UAE’s natural
history have been made in other areas such as plant-life, land-
and sea-mammals, insects, reptiles and so on, which are in many
cases the earliest (or only) data available. The practical value
of this sustained effort was vividly demonstrated during a pollution
incident in Abu Dhabi’s offshore waters during September 1993
when it was discovered that the only records available of strandings
or other unexplained deaths of marine mammals were the few held
by the Group.
Thanks to developing interest and support from official bodies,
local business people, and corporations ENHG has enhanced the
quality and content of its publications, the once thrice-yearly
duplicated Bulletin being converted in 1991 to a bi-annual printed
journal, Tribulus. Content has become significantly more scientific
in nature, although still comprehensible to the general reader.
Success in attracting corporate sponsorship has also enabled the
Group to provide its own support to others; beneficiaries including
the annual Emirates Bird Report, largely dependent upon a Group
donation, and an archaeological excavation in the Emirate of Ras
al Khaimah together with a number of other projects.
Group members have given assistance to the Federal Environmental
Agency and have prepared briefing papers on a number of issues.
Over the course of the last couple of years, there has been a
steady emergence of a clear-cut Government commitment to the environment,
and to the protection of the UAE’s wildlife, shown both in new
legislation and in the creation of bodies like the FEA and the
National Avian Research Centre. This, in turn, is leading to more
activity by professional scientists in the field, both from the
UAE and from overseas. When the Emirates Natural History Group
was founded, despite its amateur and voluntary basis, it was the
only group in the country devoted to the study and protection
of wildlife in all its forms. As such, it was obliged to try to
perform, somewhat ambitiously and not always successfully, the
roles normally divided between voluntary and statuary bodies.
In the future, the statuary role is likely to be performed by
official bodies, with whom the ENHG will continue to develop close
relations. As a voluntary organisation, it will continue to seek
to inform, to educate, to lobby, to record, to publish, and to
provide a forum whereby, through meetings and trips, it offers
both expatriate and national residents of the Emirates the opportunity
to enjoy the pleasure of learning about the country in which they
live.