Biodiversity Strategy of the United Arab Emirates 2014-2021.

This Biodiversity Strategy is a nationwide sectoral document that includes a series of main orientations and national goals in line with the “Emirates Vision 2021”, in addition to the Emirates' Strategy for Green Development, the National Strategy for Coastal and Marine Environment, the Bio-safety Strategy and the Aichi Biodiversity Targets. The main orientations focus on: 1) mainstreaming biodiversity in all economic and social sectors; 2) reinforcement of knowledge sharing and capacity building for upgrading and addressing biodiversity management; 3) improvement of biodiversity status through habitat protection, genetic diversity and restoration of degraded ecosystems; 4) reducing pressure on marine and terrestrial biodiversity; and 5) enhancing regional and international cooperation on biodiversity cross-cutting issues. Twenty-one national targets with action-driven and outcome-oriented measures, grouped under the aforementioned 5 thematic areas, have been set out. The new biodiversity strategy includes particular engagements on capacity building, communication and public awareness, resource mobilization, and on a national knowledge sharing platform in line with the CHM of the Convention on Biological Diversity. Progress on the implementation of the strategy and action plan will be monitored and assessed and findings will be reported by representatives from each Emirate.
To make agriculture, forestry and fisheries more productive and sustainable, the policy aims at (i) managing in a sustainable manner 50% of government and private land, exploited for agriculture, aquaculture and forestry, to ensure the conservation of biodiversity; (ii) encouraging and supporting individual and community initiatives to protect, conserve and restore important habitats and ecosystems of marine biodiversity; (iii) identifying marine and coastal species and their most sensitive habitats and developing measures to avoid, treat or mitigate the adverse effects of traditional, commercial and recreational fishing; (iv) developing and implementing plans to control priority species while identifying all exotic and invasive species and their pathways; and (v) developing studies concerning the environmental impact assessment for the marine fisheries in decision making phases and other marine management activities.
In order to increase the resilience of livelihoods to disasters, the Government is committed to (i) improve the contribution of ecosystems to carbon stocks by protecting and rehabilitation of at least 50% of degraded habitats, helping to mitigate the effects of climate change and desertification; and (ii) develop action plans to reduce the impacts of human activities on sensitive marine ecosystems and improve their resilience to the impacts of climate change.
As for the Governance, the first steps identified by the document are (i) allocate adequate financial, human and technical resources for the effective implementation of the national biodiversity strategy at the federal and local levels; and (ii) establish a national Committee to follow the implementation of the Biodiversity Strategy and which has among its objectives to facilitate the resolution of issues that could arise during implementation.