EMRQ research director Dr Jennifer Dupont and PEO director general Nawaf Jabr al-Nuaimi led the MoU signing to protect Qatar’s ecology.

 

The General Directorate of Natural Reserves Private Engineering Office (PEO) and ExxonMobil Research Qatar (EMRQ) have signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) to protect Qatar’s ecology.
The MoU provides a collective framework for the research and resources needed to fulfill long-term goals of increasing knowledge about marine habitats and species in Qatar.
“We are extremely pleased to announce our partnership with PEO to help gather robust science in support of establishing a Qatari Dugong Management Plan,” said Dr Jennifer Dupont, EMRQ research director, who led the MoU signing together with PEO director general Nawaf Jabr al-Nuaimi for Jaber bin Abdullah al-Attiyah.
Under the newly signed MoU, EMRQ will leverage existing information gathered with its research partners, Qatar University and Texas A&M at Galveston, on the local population of dugongs (marine mammals).
The MoU also enables EMRQ to provide PEO with technical advice, scientific data and technology transfer, as well as training and capacity building opportunities, among others.
Dr Dupont’s team will work collaboratively with academic research partners, along with government agencies such as the PEO, to secure necessary resources and scientific expertise needed to ensure dugongs are protected and live unhindered in their natural habitat.
“Protecting Qatar’s dugong population and other marine and species habitats in Qatar’s waters is a top priority for us, and it is with the support of research partners, such as EMRQ, that we can boost scientific understanding of these species and achieve our mission,” said al-Nuaimi.
Dugongs, which are large, long-living herbivorous marine mammals that consume sea grasses, can reach lengths of greater than three metres, weigh more than 400kg and live up to 60 years.
Historically, dugongs have had a cultural and economic importance to Qataris, having been used as both an economic and food resource in the Arabian Gulf for more than 7,500 years.
Qatar is home to the largest population of dugongs outside of Australia with two of the three most important regions in the Arabian Gulf.
As mammals with a low reproductive output, dugongs are listed as “Vulnerable to Extinction” by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature.  
Currently, dugongs in Qatar face challenges including incidental fishing and habitat degradation.  The extreme marine and physical environment of the Arabian Gulf, as well as the northern limit of dugong distribution, likely means that their life-history differs from populations in Australia.
EMRQ and PEO have collaborated in the past in support of Qatar’s dugong population.  In February, the two parties completed a one-day field mission to locate live dugongs off the west coast of Qatar as part of ongoing data collection efforts to better understand the distribution, abundance and behaviour of the Qatar dugong population.
The field mission resulted in video and photographic documentation of the dugongs as they travelled and fed in the area, and is the first time that live animals have been documented as part of current research efforts.
EMRQ and PEO, in partnership with QU, have also been collaborating to commission a research project to study the ecology and geology of the inland sea (Khor Al-Udaid), to help better protect it.




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