Of all the UAE's physical assets, its marine environment and its long coastline have often failed to get the recognition – and the protection – they deserve. But that is changing with the release of a draft version of an innovative plan to ensure that Abu Dhabi's development will remain compatible with the health of its territorial waters. The Plan Maritime 2030 is the territorial waters equivalent of the Vision 2030 document that was introduced to optimise the capital's urban planning and development.
The UAE’s oil reserves and the revenues they generate are rightly credited with kick-starting this country’s rapid development, creating a series of modern cities only a few decades after the country lacked adequate medical and educational facilities.
But as the Abu Dhabi Maritime 2030 Charette heard this week, the UAE’s territorial waters account for 68 per cent of the country’s gross domestic product. Until the marine spatial planning draft map was unveiled at the conference, there had been no clear guidelines on how to allocate different areas for different uses, including identifying and preserving the most valuable sites.
The idea is not to lock away all the territorial waters for conservation, but to understand where development ought to take place. As Charles Ehler, president of Ocean Visions Consulting, told the planning conference: “We want to be aware of what is out there in the marine environment so that if we choose to protect it today we know what we are protecting, or if we choose to develop these areas we know what we are losing and the value of it.”
The value is certainly immense, be it in the form of the mangroves, the mineral riches that are to be found offshore or the intangible asset of coastal waters being a space for quiet kayaking or screaming jetskis. Ecologically, the southern Gulf is also of global significance as the world’s second largest dugong environment and as home to turtles, seabirds, fish and corals.
As the charette was told, doing nothing is not an option. Dubai and Abu Dhabi are continuing to grow towards being a single metropolis and that guarantees that there will be more pressure on the marine environment. This draft plan is a big step towards managing that cleverly and skilfully on behalf of future generations in the UAE.
