Letter from the Director

Letter from the Director of the Nature Conservation Sector Dr. Moustafa Fouda

The natural heritage of Egypt has always been a source of pride and security for our nation. Indeed, our ancestors were the first to adopt resource conservation and to record the diversity of nature. Now that biodiversity has come to be recognized as integral to the health, well-being and prosperity of people everywhere, our ability to protect valuable natural resources has developed in step with scientific research and global commitment.

The establishment of Parks Egypt, our ecologically representative system of protected areas, has been a relatively recent activity. Beginning with the declaration of Ras Mohammed National Park in 1983, Egypt has made significant progress. Today, more than 14% of our territory is under conservation management and we plan to almost double that amount by 2017.

The Egyptian Government regards protected areas as one of the most effective measures to conserve the nation’s natural heritage, particularly in view of emerging threats to biodiversity. However, establishing protected areas is one thing, ensuring that they are effective tools for nature conservation is another. In 2005, the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) reconfirmed the need for nations to intensify efforts towards effectively managing their systems of protected areas. One of the goals of the CBD Program for Work on Protected Areas is to adopt and implement frameworks for monitoring, evaluating and reporting protected areas management effectiveness for individual sites, national and regional systems, and trans-boundary protected areas by 2010.

Towards this target, we have carried out a systematic evaluation of our protected areas, one of the first to be conducted in the Arab World or the Middle East. We have discovered that there are strengths in the way Egypt has implemented its management of the protected areas, but there are also some clear weaknesses we must address. By determining the extent to which Parks Egypt is achieving its objectives, by identifying management strengths and weaknesses, and by focusing attention on action and policy intervention, we now have a detailed and prioritized list of those aspects needing the most urgent attention.

Establishing the protected areas of Parks Egypt was our county’s response to the national and global necessity of protecting natural resources, reversing their degradation and encouraging sustainable development. Monitoring, evaluating and constantly improving effectiveness is our commitment.