Minister of the Environment Yasmine Fouad met on Sunday with Head of the Egyptian Society for the Conservation of Nature Khaled El-Noubi, and Founder and Director of the Global Bird Fair Society Tim Appleton, and an accompanying delegation.
Discussions aimed at bolstering co-operation for preserving biodiversity, especially protecting migratory birds.
The minister was offered a mural featuring, a drawing of migratory bird species to be placed on the site of Al-Jalala Migratory Bird Watching. It shows the extent of interest in preserving birds and their importance for preserving biodiversity.
During the meeting, Minister Fouad reviewed Egypt’s journey for the protection of nature.
The nature protection sector was the nucleus of the institutional structure for the environment in Egypt in 1983, which reflected Egypt’s high interest in nature conservation long ago, the minister said.
Egypt hosted the UN Convention on Biological Diversity conference in 2014,
The country then began efforts to counter a major challenge to reconcile the choice of expanding renewable energy with protecting migratory birds and preserving biodiversity at the same time, she added.
The conference provided the country a great opportunity to build its national capabilities in monitoring and protecting migratory birds, and marked a milestone in reconsidering procedures, which led Egypt to receive the African–Eurasian Migratory Waterbird Agreement (AEWA) International Award for the Conservation of Migratory Birds in 2019, she said.
The efforts to protect migratory birds also included working to establish bird watching and observation sites, which began in Sharm El-Sheikh, where oxidation lakes were treated to offer a suitable site. Partnerships were also concluded with tourism companies to place bird watching among the eco-tourism activities provided therein.
Coinciding with this, the Eco Egypt campaign was launched to promote 13 environmental tourist destinations in the country, as well as creating a supportive climate for eco-tourism.
In addition, Minister Fouad highlighted government’s efforts to restore another natural bird-watching site in Lake Qarun, in Fayoum, where the Ministry of Environment intervened in 2018 to address the environmental degradation in the lake, which led to the reluctance of birds to pass through it and the ecosystem was restored again, and after 3 years the birds returned to once more.
