The houbara bustard is used to hunt with falcons / Photo courtesy Impact Porter Novelli
The houbara bustard is used to hunt with falcons / Photo courtesy Impact Porter Novelli
The houbara bustard is used to hunt with falcons / Photo courtesy Impact Porter Novelli
The houbara bustard is used to hunt with falcons / Photo courtesy Impact Porter Novelli

Nature lovers and hunters forge unlikely alliances at a birding summit


  • English
  • Arabic

Many years ago, growing up in the delightful English county of Sussex, I came to love the environment around me. Perhaps that was in part because my father was a gardener and author of gardening books while my mother was a biology teacher, but the birds and other animals, the trees and the flowers of the meadows and woodlands fascinated me. As I got older, I began to shoot, wandering unobtrusively around, learning where to wait for pigeons coming in to roost or how to catch a wary rabbit unawares.

I never actually killed much, although I occasionally supplemented my pocket money with small sums given for killing a rabbit that was raiding my father’s vegetable patch or that ever-present pest, a grey squirrel.

As the years passed, I no longer had the opportunity to go shooting and it has been decades since I have done so. The love of nature that I learned, though, has stayed with me ever since. Perhaps that is why I have always believed that it's perfectly understandable that many of those who hunt, whether with the gun, the falcon or the fishing rod, can, at the same time, be passionate supporters of conservation. Many leading conservationists still engage in hunting in some form.

It was, therefore, with considerable interest that I attended the Summit for the Flyways conference held in Abu Dhabi last week. Organised by international conservation charity BirdLife International, it was hosted by the International Foundation for Houbara Conservation (IFHC) which, at its heart, has the objective of increasing wild populations of the houbara bustard so that it will be possible to continue sustainable hunting with falcons.

Falconry is unpopular among much of the birdwatching community. How, I wondered, would it be possible for a collection of people with such different views to come together amicably to discuss ways of tackling threats to the world’s birds?

Yet among both dedicated conservationists who had never hunted in their lives and those who have a passion for pastimes like falconry, as well as for conserving the environment and wildlife, there was an evident willingness to engage and share ideas, proposals and the results of research.

Just over 40 years ago, I attended the first International Conference on Falconry and Conservation, held in Abu Dhabi and convened by the late Sheikh Zayed. It would have been almost unthinkable then for the same kind of dialogue I witnessed last week between falconers and non-hunting conservationists to have taken place. The debate on conservation, though, has moved on and, as with much else within the Emirates, the implementation here of Sheikh Zayed’s own vision, in this case for sustainable hunting, has played a part.

The discussion of an action plan to conserve the saker falcon, much prized by Arab falconers, provided a good example. Over the last 20 years, as the managing director of the Environment Agency Abu Dhabi (EAD), Mohammed Al Bowardi, noted, the world population of the species has dropped by about 50 per cent, partly because of the taking of falcons but also because of habitat loss and electrocution by power lines.

In Mongolia a programme to erect special nesting boxes, run jointly by EAD and local authorities, has led to a substantial increase in the saker population. A highlight of the last day of the conference was the announcement of a new Mohammed bin Zayed Raptor Conservation Fund. Its first initiative is the allocation of $1 million as seed money for a new campaign to bring conservationists, governments and electricity companies together to find a solution to the problem of bird mortality caused by power lines. Both projects might be of benefit for falconers but there are major benefits for conservation too.

Differing views on falconry and other forms of hunting will not disappear nor, indeed, should one expect them to do so. Millions of birds are still killed or trapped by illegal hunting every year, although it is encouraging to note that preliminary estimates suggest the UAE has the best record in the region, thanks to effective implementation of legislation. Around the world, however, the concept of sustainable hunting is now much more widespread than it was four decades ago, as well as understanding of the way in which it can contribute to conservation.

At the conference, conservationists of all kinds seem to have made major progress in pursuit of a shared commitment to protecting the world’s bird species, one in eight of which is now globally threatened. Looking ahead, the UAE seems set to continue to play its part. As a former hunter, now primarily a bird-lover, that is something I welcome.

Peter Hellyer is a consultant specialising in the UAE’s history and culture

The story in numbers

18

This is how many recognised sects Lebanon is home to, along with about four million citizens

450,000

More than this many Palestinian refugees are registered with UNRWA in Lebanon, with about 45 per cent of them living in the country’s 12 refugee camps

1.5 million

There are just under 1 million Syrian refugees registered with the UN, although the government puts the figure upwards of 1.5m

73

The percentage of stateless people in Lebanon, who are not of Palestinian origin, born to a Lebanese mother, according to a 2012-2013 study by human rights organisation Frontiers Ruwad Association

18,000

The number of marriages recorded between Lebanese women and foreigners between the years 1995 and 2008, according to a 2009 study backed by the UN Development Programme

77,400

The number of people believed to be affected by the current nationality law, according to the 2009 UN study

4,926

This is how many Lebanese-Palestinian households there were in Lebanon in 2016, according to a census by the Lebanese-Palestinian dialogue committee

Indoor cricket in a nutshell

Indoor Cricket World Cup – Sep 16-20, Insportz, Dubai

16 Indoor cricket matches are 16 overs per side

8 There are eight players per team

There have been nine Indoor Cricket World Cups for men. Australia have won every one.

5 Five runs are deducted from the score when a wickets falls

Batsmen bat in pairs, facing four overs per partnership

Scoring In indoor cricket, runs are scored by way of both physical and bonus runs. Physical runs are scored by both batsmen completing a run from one crease to the other. Bonus runs are scored when the ball hits a net in different zones, but only when at least one physical run is score.

Zones

A Front net, behind the striker and wicketkeeper: 0 runs

B Side nets, between the striker and halfway down the pitch: 1 run

Side nets between halfway and the bowlers end: 2 runs

Back net: 4 runs on the bounce, 6 runs on the full

About Karol Nawrocki

• Supports military aid for Ukraine, unlike other eurosceptic leaders, but he will oppose its membership in western alliances.

• A nationalist, his campaign slogan was Poland First. "Let's help others, but let's take care of our own citizens first," he said on social media in April.

• Cultivates tough-guy image, posting videos of himself at shooting ranges and in boxing rings.

• Met Donald Trump at the White House and received his backing.

THE SPECS

Engine: 3.5-litre V6
Transmission: six-speed manual
Power: 325bhp
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While you're here
Du Plessis plans his retirement

South Africa captain Faf du Plessis said on Friday the Twenty20 World Cup in Australia in two years' time will be his last.

Du Plessis, 34, who has led his country in two World T20 campaigns, in 2014 and 2016, is keen to play a third but will then step aside.

"The T20 World Cup in 2020 is something I'm really looking forward to. I think right now that will probably be the last tournament for me," he said in Brisbane ahead of a one-off T20 against Australia on Saturday. 

Test

Director: S Sashikanth

Cast: Nayanthara, Siddharth, Meera Jasmine, R Madhavan

Star rating: 2/5

Sole survivors
  • Cecelia Crocker was on board Northwest Airlines Flight 255 in 1987 when it crashed in Detroit, killing 154 people, including her parents and brother. The plane had hit a light pole on take off
  • George Lamson Jr, from Minnesota, was on a Galaxy Airlines flight that crashed in Reno in 1985, killing 68 people. His entire seat was launched out of the plane
  • Bahia Bakari, then 12, survived when a Yemenia Airways flight crashed near the Comoros in 2009, killing 152. She was found clinging to wreckage after floating in the ocean for 13 hours.
  • Jim Polehinke was the co-pilot and sole survivor of a 2006 Comair flight that crashed in Lexington, Kentucky, killing 49.
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Racecard
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Types of fraud

Phishing: Fraudsters send an unsolicited email that appears to be from a financial institution or online retailer. The hoax email requests that you provide sensitive information, often by clicking on to a link leading to a fake website.

Smishing: The SMS equivalent of phishing. Fraudsters falsify the telephone number through “text spoofing,” so that it appears to be a genuine text from the bank.

Vishing: The telephone equivalent of phishing and smishing. Fraudsters may pose as bank staff, police or government officials. They may persuade the consumer to transfer money or divulge personal information.

SIM swap: Fraudsters duplicate the SIM of your mobile number without your knowledge or authorisation, allowing them to conduct financial transactions with your bank.

Identity theft: Someone illegally obtains your confidential information, through various ways, such as theft of your wallet, bank and utility bill statements, computer intrusion and social networks.

Prize scams: Fraudsters claiming to be authorised representatives from well-known organisations (such as Etisalat, du, Dubai Shopping Festival, Expo2020, Lulu Hypermarket etc) contact victims to tell them they have won a cash prize and request them to share confidential banking details to transfer the prize money.

* Nada El Sawy

Company Profile

Founders: Tamara Hachem and Yazid Erman
Based: Dubai
Launched: September 2019
Sector: health technology
Stage: seed
Investors: Oman Technology Fund, angel investor and grants from Sharjah's Sheraa and Ma'an Abu Dhabi