(MENAFN- Muscat Daily) H E Mohammed bin Salim bin Said al Toobi, Minister of Environment and Climate Affairs on Sunday issued a ministerial decision on forming a committee for turtle conservation projects in the sultanate.
The committee, headed by the Director General of Nature Preservation at the Ministry of Environment and Climate Affairs (MECA), includes members from the ministries of Tourism, Regional Municipalities and Water Resources, Agriculture and Fisheries, Transport and Communications and the Ministry of Interior, besides The Research Council, Sultan Qaboos University and the Environment Society of Oman.
The committee will be in charge of supervising the preparation of a national strategy on turtle protection, assessing the current status, challenges and priorities, an action plan and ways to implement it and submitting proposals on sites that should be declared as turtle sanctuaries.
The decision comes as part of MECA's efforts to provide turtles with a conducive environment.
The committee will also prepare proposals on areas that are vital for nesting and feeding to be declared natural reserves and prepare a mechanism to integrate suggestions of bodies involved in turtle conservation.
It will chalk out responsibilities and budgets for each programme and designate the departments that will carry out researches, monitoring operations, and coordinate with research bodies in the sultanate.
It will also work to build the capacities of cadres on the field and look into preparing programmes to improve financial conditions of fishermen living in turtle nesting areas, especially Mahout Island. There are plans to include them in the conservation plans.
It will prepare guidelines on eco-tourism projects in nesting areas and study the long-term effects of development and ship movement in these areas.
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