Dr. Yasmine Fouad, Minister of Environment, reviewed the ministry’s achievements in protecting biodiversity during the year 2022 at the national and global levels, which included participation in the fifteenth Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity, held in Montreal, Canada, from December 7 to 19, 2022.
The ministry has achieved a number of achievements, the most important of which is chairing a series of meetings with the aim of achieving progress towards the ambitious global goal and facilitating the negotiation process towards setting a general framework for biodiversity beyond 2020 to present it to the world and to future generations with the Canadian Minister of the Environment, as well as signing two memorandums of understanding between Egypt and the Maldives. To support joint cooperation to confront the effects of climate change and achieve the goals of biodiversity and environmental monitoring, Egypt and Albania to enhance friendly relations between the two countries and support environmental cooperation in the fields of biodiversity and reserves, ecotourism, coastal zone management, climate change, marine pollution and disaster management, environmental monitoring in air and water field.
The Minister of Environment confirmed that the project of releasing and resettling Houbara birds from Al-Ameed Reserve to Matrouh Governorate in Egypt, in cooperation with the International Fund for Houbara Conservation in the sisterly Arab Emirates, is one of the most important joint projects that were launched to protect biological diversity during the year, as 2,000 Houbara birds were released from The Arab Republic of Egypt, within the framework of the cooperation protocol, which aims to discuss the establishment of projects aimed at sustainable management of animals and birds and with economic and social returns for local communities in the area around which conservation projects for these species are centered, with the participation of the concerned authorities, in addition to exchanging experiences and raising national capabilities in Areas related to the recovery, protection and sustainable management of Houbara bustards and key species to be agreed upon.
The Minister of Environment said that the year 2022 witnessed the selection of the Migratory Soaring Birds Conservation Project as a model for best practices for projects funded by the Global Environment Facility for the year 2022, due to the successful and transformative results it achieved in generalizing measures to preserve migratory soaring birds in the five main sectors (hunting, energy, tourism, agriculture and waste management), which It directly affects migratory soaring birds along the Rift Valley/Red Sea migration path.
The Minister of the Environment stated that the protection of biodiversity at the local level was carried out according to many axes, the most important of which is monitoring and controlling the main activities for the uses of wildlife, as an ambitious program was implemented to monitor and control all major activities to display wildlife in farms, private zoos and circuses, through the preparation of an adequate database. For these activities, the law has been enacted regarding licensing these activities, and each of them has a record of data on the animals used, which are often from outside the Egyptian environment. The program includes a plan for inspection and periodic traffic in cooperation with the Environment and Landscaping Police.
