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As part of its commitment towards conserving wildlife and endangered species, Al Ain Zoo will be hosting the third annual workshop of the International Union for Conservation and Nature’s (IUCN) Species Survival Commission Task Force from January 17 to 19. This task force combines the expertise of the Re-introduction and Invasive Species Specialist Groups to develop revised guidelines for the reintroduction of plants and animals into the wild and other deliberate movements for conservation purposes.
Since their last meeting in Al Ain Zoo in April 2011, task force members have been actively working on revising these guidelines to an all-embracing template such that this year’s workshops will be focused on editing and testing the guidelines against real life situations. The enhanced guidelines will then be presented to the international conservation community at the World Conservation Congress in Korea in September 2012 with more than 6,000 attendees. The workshops – a collaboration between Al Ain Zoo, the Re-introduction Specialist Group of the Species Survival Commission and the Invasive Species Specialist Group – have been generously supported by Al Ain Zoo over its three-year span.
Dr. Arshad Toosy, Acting Chief Life Science and Conservation Development at Al Ain Zoo, commented:
“It gives us great pleasure to be hosting an initiative of such international caliber and to be part of a movement working towards conserving endangered species in the region and across the globe. These workshops have been successful since their launch in 2009 in bringing leading international experts to share expertise, discuss current issues and develop real solutions as conservationists confront issues such as climate change and urbanization.”
Dr Mark Stanley Price, Al Ain Zoo Conservation Fellow and Senior Research Fellow at the Wildlife Conservation Research Unit, University of Oxford, added:
“The main driver for updating the Guidelines is the increasing realisation that the world’s wildlife faces significant problems through loss and breaking up of habitats, unsustainable overuse and pollution and emerging diseases. There is very little of the earth’s surface that is not affected by human activities, and very often the effects and changes are harmful to wildlife. Part of conservation’s response to these challenges is to see where and how plants and animals can be restored. Al Ain Zoo is successfully playing precisely this role through its conservation programmes.”
Alongside Dr Stanley Price, Dr. Arshad Toosy, and Lisa Banfield, Conservation Officer at Al Ain Zoo, specialists participating in the workshops include a list of esteemed experts such as Dr Axel Moehrenschlager, Head of the Centre for Conservation Research at Calgary Zoological Society in Canada; Dr Peter Hollingsworth, Head of Genetics and Conservation at the Royal Botanic Garden of Edinburgh in the United Kingdom; and Dr Piero Genovesi, Chair of the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s Invasive Species Specialist Group and Senior Conservation Officer of the Institute for Environmental Protection and Research in Italy.
Al Ain Zoo supports a range of global initiatives as part of its commitment to developing leading conservation and breeding programmes for endangered arid land species. For example, Al Ain Zoo is supporting the Ishaqbini Community Conservancy in Kenya (in association with the Northern Rangelands Trust) in their conservation of the critically endangered Hirola antelope, of which there are an estimated total of less than 600 remaining in the wild. The zoo is also are a core supporter of the Sahara Conservation Fund, enabling them to implement their wide range of in-situ conservation programmes such as the Saharan Carnivore Conservation, Ostrich Conservation and Antelope Reintroduction Programmes. Closer to home, Al Ain Zoo provides animals for the Arabian oryx reintroduction programme in the UAE and surrounding region.
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