The Ministry of Municipality and Urban Planning's Department of Protection and Wildlife said on Wednesday that its strategy is focused on protecting endangered species.
This was stated at a press conference where the department's officials discussed a project to protect the hawksbill sea turtle, one of the endangered species in the state.
The officials stressed that their efforts will focus on monitoring rare and endangered species in order to protect them.
They noted that the International Union for Conservation of Nature enlisted these species as endangered in 1982.
Director of the department Omar Salem Al Nuaimi said that the Ministry is committed to protecting the hawksbill sea turtle, reflected the project done in cooperation with QP and Qatar University which began in 2003.
It aims to protect the species found on the countries Northern shores (Ras Laffan, Al Morouna, Fuwayrit, Al Ghayriya) as well as islands such as Umm Al Tais and Haloul.
The goal of the project is to determine the location of the animals and to transport the eggs to safe locations.
This will help monitoring the hatching process before returning the newly-born turtles to the sea.
Al Nuaimi discussed the progress of this year's work, which involved choosing highly-skilled Qatari Environmental Observers to carry out the fieldwork.
Work this year also involved holding a number of training workshops for the team by specialists from the department.
He noted that those in charge recommended some sort of protection during the nesting season, and highlighted the ministerial decision number 2010 on preserving sea turtles and birds from extinction. It is based on this law that the Fuwayrit beach is off-limits to visitors from April to the end of July.
There are also patrols that monitor other beaches in case they also become a home during the turtles' nesting season.
