Management

The protected areas of South Sinai are managed by objectives in order to enable management to respond to the rapidly changing situations experienced in South Sinai.

Objectives

  • To provide appropriate management for the full protection, conservation and sustainable use of natural and cultural resources.
  • To maintain the integrity of natural systems to protect and conserve biodiversity and essential processes.
  • To manage desert ecosystems, landscapes and their biodiversity as areas of natural and economic significance.
  • To provide for the full integration and protection of indigenous people residing in or adjacent to the protectorates.
  • To provide the means to ensure that resource utilization is sustainable and in harmony with the protectorates’ objectives.
  • To ensure that economic development activities are executed in alignment with the objectives of the protectorates.
  • To provide for a full range of recreational activities ensuring that these are ecologically sustainable and socially acceptable.
  • To ensure that all actions likely to impact the protectorates are subject to proper evaluation according to relevant legal instruments.

Threats

  • Unsustainable tourism practices and development.
  • Over-hunting and over-grazing.
  • Over collection of plants.
  • Extinction of endangered wildlife species.
  • Rising demand on scarce water resources.
  • Rising demand on building materials extracted from the protectorate.
  • Marginalization of local community and forced change in their lifestyles.
  • Disappearance of traditional knowledge.

Projects

GIS/GPS

A project is underway in the St. Katherine area that uses GIS/GPS techniques to record the movements of domestic goats and sheep by fitting the animals with GPS receivers. Along with direct observations of the animals’ plant preferences and the amount they eat, results are entered on a terrain model, which gives researchers a more accurate picture of animal grazing and the vegetation available. This work is being done with the help of local communities so that they are participating in decisions concerning the sustainable use of their environment.

Acacia Regeneration

A program was begun in 2000 to investigate the failure of Acacia tortillis and Acacia raddiana to regenerate. Acacia seeds from both species were collected from the wild by local Bedouins and gardens were established by 60 Bedouin households for growing seedlings. Monitoring enclosures were constructed in some of the main wadis to protect adult Acacias and their growth was measured and compared with trees outside the enclosures. Later 30,000 of the Acacia seedlings that had been raised by the Bedouin were planted in five wadis in the St. Katherine Protectorate, with palm leaf boxes as protection from grazing and for shade. These seedlings were tended by local Bedouins and the survival rate of the seedlings in the first two years was a remarkable 60%. Growth data, soil analysis, meteorological data, grazing study results and other related data have been entered into a GIS database program for monitoring progress.

Medicinal Plants

Some 419 plant species or almost 40% of Egypt's total plant species are found in the Sinai Peninsula and nearly half the plants endemic to Sinai are found in St. Katherine Protectorate. The Bedouin in southern Sinai are reported to use over 170 plants to treat medical disorders from colds and indigestion to insect bites and stings. The value of these medicinal plants and the indigenous people's knowledge of them has been internationally recognized.

Pursuant to the Egyptian National Biodiversity Strategy and Action Plan, in 2002 the EEAA, in collaboration with the UNDP's sustainable development program and using GEF operational guidelines, began to conserve globally significant plant species and their associated habitats in St. Katherine Protectorate. Collection of critically endangered medicinal plants has been suspended in selected areas and small-scale community based cultivation has been introduced, along with processing and marketing, to relieve the pressure on wild plants. The project also protects the local people's intellectual property rights regarding their knowledge and use of the plants. The project also conducts medicinal plant surveys and studies in other parts of Egypt.