The Ministry of Municipality and Environment is one of the largest service ministries in the country that contribute to the development process and the overall renaissance witnessed by Qatar in the fields of municipal affairs, urban planning, agriculture, environment, waste treatment and others, in line with the Qatar National Vision 2030 that aimed at placing the State among the developed countries based on the pillars of human, economic, social and environmental development.
On September 23, 2018, the Ministry launched its sustainable strategic plan. This plan of action for the years 2018 to 2022, centres around key domains that lead the ministry to excellence in the performance of its various sectors in the service of society.
In a report on the occasion of Qatar’s celebration of its National Day on December 18, the Ministry confirms its achievement through its sectors by implementing of the wise directives of His Highness the Amir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani.
As in the report, these achievements have been in several sectors, including agriculture and fisheries, where, with regard to livestock, in recent years there has been remarkable growth in the register of pastoralists and the size of the national herd.
In the area of agricultural affairs, the honey bee national project was launched in 2013, and 1,500 cells were distributed as a grant in three stages, 10 per farm, along the follow-up of the farmer benefiting from the project, and the total amount of honey production last year reached 20.5tonnes.
As part of the Qatari Land rehabilitation project, 11 degraded Rawda were rehabilitated, while on the other hand vegetable spaces to market local product were provided in Al Mazrou’a, and Al Khor and Al Wakrah for 7 months from November 1 until the end of May each year. A programme was launched to set up more than 80 local farms to market the Qatari vegetables, in co-operation with the Ministry of Economy and Commerce, and to promote their products to match the imported variety, in the major commercial complexes with prices different from those of management of quality licenses and market control.
The Ministry of Municipality and Environment, in co-operation and co-ordination with the Ministry of Economy and Commerce, launched the “Qatar Farms” initiative, with the aim of supporting and stimulating the local agricultural produce.
The initiative gives the local produce priority to be displayed and marketed as their quality is better than the imported variety.
As part of the initiative a festival was held, in co-operation with Souq Waqif, to promote local dates. The initiative supports the owners of farms and those interested in growing dates, and upgrading the varieties of dates in the country.
The Ministry of the Municipality and the Environment is keen to organise the Qatar International Agricultural Exhibition (Agritec) every year in March. In its sixth edition in March, 2018, some 313 local, regional and international companies participated, with an increase of 100% compared to the fifth exhibition in 2017.
In the field of fisheries, the Ministry of Municipality and Environment has paid great attention to fish farming as one of the most important pillars of the national strategy for development. It has completed the establishment of the Water Research Centre in Ras Matbakh. This will be the basic nucleus for the establishment of many small and medium enterprises for aquaculture in the next few years as Qatar is in the process of becoming fully self-sufficient in fish supply within a period that doesn’t exceeds 5 years.
Under the guidance of His Highness the Amir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani, the Technical Committee for the stimulation and participation of the private sector in economic development projects, launched a public auction for investors in March 2017 to establish three floating cage fish farming projects in the sea, in addition to bidding in January for a shrimp farm construction project in Al Arish area by the private sector.
In the field of agricultural research, the ministry has implemented many activities and programmes to support and develop agricultural techniques, both in terms of water conservation and in the development of the use of agriculture methods. These come within the programmes and projects of the first and second national development strategy.
The ministry has also established the animal production research station in Shihaniyah. This station specialises in conducting research on the development of animal production techniques and improving the economic efficiency of the sector. It also aims at improving the genetic specifications and preservation, besides equipping the Al Ghishaya research station to research the production of pastoral plants.
The report included the establishment of several projects and research studies in the fields of water conservation in agriculture and saline agriculture, the use of waste resources and soil improvement, and the introduction of highly efficient and drought-resistant plants such as aloe.
In the environmental sector, the ministry developed the national system for the regulation and control of radioactive, chemical and hazardous waste activities by reviewing and updating national laws and regulations, strengthening the field of border control and customs clearance of hazardous chemicals and wastes and radioactive and nuclear sources.
The ministry opened offices of the Radiation Protection and Chemicals Department at all air, sea and land ports of the State and equipping them to inspect the shipments of hazardous materials received by the State and release them in the event of their fulfilment. The offices are located at Hamad Port, Hamad Airport, Al Ruwais Port, and Abu Samra port, while work is underway to activate the other outlets.
In addition, in co-operation with the Internal Security Force (Lekhwiya) and the General Authority of Customs, the radiation detectors are installed in the border gates and cargo detectors at all ports. As per the Radiation Protection Law No 31 of 2002, a national monitoring system and environmental radiological measurements system have been established, consisting of the Central Radiation Laboratory, the air radiation monitoring network (the Early Warning Network) and the Radiation Monitoring of the Borders.
To strengthen the security and radiological and nuclear safety infrastructure, the CPF document adopted for the period 2016-2021 was signed between Qatar and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and is consistent with Qatar’s Vision 2030 to achieve sustainable social, economic and environmental development.
It aims to identify the needs and interests of the initial development of work in different areas of the peaceful applications of nuclear energy, in addition to technical co-operation between the two sides and the implementation of several national and regional projects in all sectors of priority, including the environment, health, agriculture, food and radiation and nuclear emergencies.
In the field of environmental monitoring, “the State of the Environment in Qatar” report has been prepared and reviewed.
It is the first environmental report of its kind in the country and most importantly meets international requirements and provides updated data on the state of the environment in Qatar, taking into account environmental indicators, guided by the international dimension and regional levels, in addition to the start of the steps to establish a national network for continuous monitoring of air quality.
Eleven stations have been connected to the air quality environment, and more stations are expected to be connected in the coming months to more than 20 stations distributed throughout the country.
Approximately 10,000 environmental, physical, chemical and biological analyses of various samples are carried out annually in the laboratory.
Moreover, steps have also been taken to establish an integrated environmental database, as well as the development of air quality monitoring stations, and the monitoring of noise in Qatar, the development of the Marine Environment Monitoring Programme, with the issuance of periodic and updated reports of the country’s air, water and soil monitoring programmes.
With regard to protection and wildlife, conservation of the environment and biodiversity balance, the ministry adopted a project to establish a national biodiversity database to monitor the status of Qatar’s natural resources and preserve them within the national strategic development projects 2017-2022.
Adopting a programme to rehabilitate the Qatari mainland and re-cultivate some Qatari wild trees in several villages, and in the framework of conserving Qatari wild trees, about 500 local wild trees were moved from the infrastructure project sites to some of the roads.
On the conservation and protection of endangered Qatari trees from overgrazing, the ministry adopted a project to study the impact of the ministerial decision banning camels grazing on natural vegetation in Qatar since 2011, formed a committee to study the positive and negative effects of the decision, in addition it adopted a draft land map for the identification and classification of Qatari plants.
The ministry is supervising and participating in many projects related to marine life such as sea turtles conservation project, in addition the environmental protection, reserves and wildlife department is participating in other projects that aim to protect marine life such as the sharks and whales protection project with Maersk and Total companies and the sea cows preservation project with ExxonMobil.
The ministry also cultivated coral reefs in a number of areas in the country following the completion of several campaigns to clean the seabed from waste.
