Photo credit: UNDP Egypt/Flickr
Working hard on conservation can pay off. Over the past decade, Egypt has proven just that.
The host country for the COP27 climate summit is widely recognized for its efforts to protect ecosystems in and around its national parks and marine protected areas.
Under an hour’s drive from the conference venue in Sharm El-Sheikh lies Ras Mohammed Nature Reserve, the oldest national park in Egypt.
Following a decade of support from the Global Environment Facility, this park was awarded the IUCN Green List certificate in recognition of efforts to protect its natural ecosystems, including coral reefs, mangroves, and sea grasses in the Red Sea.
Ras Mohammed, which spans 850 square kilometers at the southern tip of the Sinai Peninsula, is one of the world’s top 10 sites recognized for effective management of marine ecosystems, and the first marine protected area in Africa and the Middle East to achieve Green List status.
It is a marine park with both coastal and land zones. The “ridge to reef” type approach to protected area management helps ensure that land-based activity such as coastal development and agricultural and waste run-off do not harm fragile marine ecosystems.
In partnership with the Egyptian environment ministry’s National Conservation Sector, the GEF and UN Development Programme (UNDP) worked from 2010 on 2020 on a project aimed at protected area financing and management systems.
The project supported the ministry’s efforts to minimize the impacts of tourism on coral reefs around Ras Mohammed, including near scuba diving sites.
This included a study to document the status and threats to marine resources across the Red Sea, and the launch of a monitoring program focused on coral coverage in the South Sinai area. It also supported the launch of a new permitting system and options for concessions sales to provide sustainable sources of funding for the protected areas.
At Ras Mohammed, this has included the construction of visitors’ facilities including shaded pavilions where local Bedouin groups can sell food and other products.
The IUCN Green List evaluation highlighted the richness of Ras Mohammed’s waters. Due to its position between the Gulf of Suez and the Gulf of Aqaba and the Red Sea, there are strong currents throughout the year which help attract diverse schools of fish.
Photo credit: UNDP Egypt/Flickr
Coral reef monitoring has found up to 90 percent live coral cover in some areas, with an average of over 65 percent. This is sharply higher than areas outside the reserve which have about 20 to 30 percent live coral cover.
Coral reefs are among the most biologically diverse and valuable ecosystems on Earth. About 25 percent of the ocean’s fish depend on healthy coral reefs, and about one billion people around the world directly or indirectly benefit from the ecosystem services provided by coral reefs.
A study published last year showed that half the planet’s coral reefs had been lost since the 1950s, due to climate change, overfishing, habitat destruction, and pollution.
But scientists have discovered that the coral reef ecosystem in the northern Red Sea appears to be more resilient to climate change, with less impact from the warming waters than other areas – as long as human impacts are kept to a minimum.
The results of the studies conducted through the program showed that while Ras Mohammed had high fish diversity and coral reef survival, the areas closer to Sharm El Sheikh were faring worse, for example with broken corals and coral fragments and low fish diversity.
A new GEF-funded project, Green Sharm El Sheikh, will help address these challenges. The new initiative aims to prioritize ecologically sustainable tourism and enable the city to adopt better practices to protect its natural resources. It will focus on rolling out low-carbon technologies and improved waste prevention and management practices.
