GEO-6 Regional Asssement for West Asia
laws and ineffective sanctions for violations to the law; lack of co-management systems and integrated coastal zone management approaches; and high illiteracy rates among fishing communities.
Illegal trade in wildlife
Globally, the illegal trade in wildlife has recently reached unprecedented levels, estimated to be worth USD20 billion a year (CITES 2015). The surge in illegal trade has been documented in the West Asia region, with countries such as Jordan, Syria, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Yemen serving as transit hubs for smugglers from and to African and Asian countries (Jabado et al. 2015; Abido 2010).
Each year, hundreds of millions of plants and animals from tens of thousands of species are killed, caught or harvested from the wild and then sold as food, pets, ornamental plants, leather, tourist trophies and curios, and medicine. While a great deal of this trade is legal and is not harming wild populations, a worryingly large proportion is illegal and threatens the survival of many endangered species. Products being traded include birds, python skins, reptiles, tigers, and ornamental and medicinal plants such as oregano and sage. In Jordan, 23 per cent of traded bird species are listed in CITES appendices II and III, whereas one species of reptile is listed by CITES (Eid et al. 2011).
One study in Saudi Arabia found the price of birds to range from USD2 for a common quail to USD7 332 for a peregrine falcon, whilst for mammals, it ranged from USD27 for a cape hare to USD800 for a grey wolf (Aloufi and Eid 2014). Regulatory measures are in place for most of the region, but implementation mechanisms are still lagging behind. Trade in wildlife species disturbs biological resources as part of a linked ecological system, causing remarkable changes in this system and having profound effects on local communities and their ecosystems (Gurevitch and Padilla 2004) (Box 2.4.2, Aloufi and Eid, 2014).
2.4.3 Policy responses for biodiversity management
Biodiversity provides many key benefits to humans; hence losing it has negative impacts on several aspects of human well-being, including food security and access to clean water and raw materials, all of which affect human health. For instance, salt marshes are considered to be transporters of nutrients between land and water. They remove pollutants and pathogens from natural wastewater before it reaches coastal waters and estuaries, thus contributing to water quality. As a result, West Asian countries are showing increasing commitment to biodiversity conservation.
Joining international efforts to conserve biodiversity
West Asian countries have joined biodiversity-related agreements, with 11 countries having developed and in the process of updating their policy instruments in this regard (Table 2.4.1). Nevertheless, the pace remains slow, owing to the overwhelming nature of the task for government officials and the lack of effective implementation mechanisms.
Research and development
The management and conservation of important regional terrestrial and marine ecosystems have been hampered by the limited availability and/or low quality of scientific data that could be used to drive management and policy-making decisions. For example, despite the Red Sea containing coral reefs that are hotspots of endemism, and ecosystems in the ROPME Sea Area that can serve as models for the study of life in extreme environments, scientific publication on the region’s reefs is limited compared to that of other regions (Berumen et al. 2013; Burt 2013).
Furthermore, aside from the high variability in the amount of science being performed, research in the region has generally focused on some of the most iconic or commercially important species, while many of the more threatened species have received scant attention and little is known about their status, distribution or taxonomy.
74
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88 |
Page 89 |
Page 90 |
Page 91 |
Page 92 |
Page 93 |
Page 94 |
Page 95 |
Page 96 |
Page 97 |
Page 98 |
Page 99 |
Page 100 |
Page 101 |
Page 102 |
Page 103 |
Page 104 |
Page 105 |
Page 106 |
Page 107 |
Page 108 |
Page 109 |
Page 110 |
Page 111 |
Page 112 |
Page 113 |
Page 114 |
Page 115 |
Page 116 |
Page 117 |
Page 118 |
Page 119 |
Page 120 |
Page 121 |
Page 122 |
Page 123 |
Page 124 |
Page 125 |
Page 126 |
Page 127 |
Page 128 |
Page 129 |
Page 130 |
Page 131 |
Page 132 |
Page 133 |
Page 134 |
Page 135 |
Page 136 |
Page 137 |
Page 138 |
Page 139 |
Page 140 |
Page 141 |
Page 142 |
Page 143 |
Page 144 |
Page 145 |
Page 146 |
Page 147 |
Page 148 |
Page 149 |
Page 150 |
Page 151 |
Page 152 |
Page 153 |
Page 154 |
Page 155 |
Page 156