Omani Conservation Laws Protect Flora, Fauna, and Even Architecture

By Richard H. Curtiss

"Turtle permits" reads a trail of English-language signs guiding visitors through the corridors of Oman's Ministry of Regional Municipalities and Environment. It doesn't mean, however, that residents of Oman have to obtain a license for a pet tortoise, or can buy a license to fish for the giant sea turtles that swim off Oman's hundreds of miles of Indian Ocean coast. In fact, turtles are strictly protected in this land of carefully written and strictly enforced environmental laws covering everything from a broad array of endangered plants and animals to the distance that must separate septic tanks from water wells (60 meters, or 195 feet).

The "turtle permits" represent one means by which the Sultanate strikes a balance between protecting an endangered species—the green turtles which range tropical and sub-tropical seas and nest on at least six protected Omani beaches—and providing residents an opportunity to observe these giant creatures as they come ashore at night to dig their nests and lay their eggs.

Five of the nesting areas on Oman's Masira Island and Ras al-Hadd area are off-limits to anyone but the rangers who drive off predators and the scientists who count and tag some of the emerging hatchlings. Turtles from among the 25,000 tagged on Oman's beaches over the past 12 years have been found as far away as the African coasts of Ethiopia and Somalia and the Asian coasts of Pakistan. The turtles are believed to reproduce until they are 70 to 100 years old. During their nesting cycles, which occur every two to four years, they mate in the water and then lay up to three clutches of eggs spaced two weeks apart.

It is for the sixth nesting beach at Ras al-Hadd that "turtle permits" are issued, allowing a strictly limited number of visitors to camp so long as they abide by rules prohibiting lights, flash cameras or camp fires visible from the beach—all of which would frighten off the nesting turtles and disorient the hatchlings as they seek their way to the sea. But the permits allow visitors to camp out of sight on the inland side of the dune line and to watch from the dunes the beginning of the nightly cycle at sunset, and the end of it at dawn.

Turtles are only one of the unique species strictly protected in Oman. Even rarer are the leopards present in the rugged Musandam area where the Arabian gulf meets the Arabian sea and at the opposite end of Oman in Dhofar province, which borders Yemen.

Another unique animal just coming back from the brink of extinction since a hunting ban was initiated by Oman's Sultan Qaboos in the sixth year of his reign in 1976, is the Arabian tahr, a kind of mountain goat related to the ibex. Although the population has more than doubled since 1976 and now is believed to have reached 2,000, it remains the rarest large mammal in the world. There are two related but separate species of tahrs in southern India and in Nepal, but the Arabian tahr's range is limited to Oman and a portion of the United Arab Emirates.

Other mammals included in Oman's protection program include the Arabian oryx, distant sightings of which may have given rise to European legends of the mythological unicorn; mountain gazelles, which have been increased by a captive breeding program; ibex, which also are large mountain goats; and two kinds of cats, the large Caracal lynx and the sandcat or Gordon's wildcat, a small, shy animal that dwells among sand dunes and looks like a domestic cat with a long, extra-bushy tail.

All of these land animals and the unique eco-systems in which they live are relics of the repeated glacial periods in northern latitudes, when the Arabian peninsula was a well-watered savannah. As the last glacial epoch ended and desert replaced the grasslands some 12,000 years ago, the high mountains and Alpine valleys of Oman and adjacent Yemen became the last refuge of flora and fauna that have vanished completely from other parts of Arabia.

Because of Oman's active measures to preserve its unique eco-systems for posterity, Sultan Qaboos was invited to address the global environment conference in Rio De Janeiro in 1993. Expanding his national environmental commitment to the world scene, Oman's ruler also has initiated an annual international award of $250,000 for outstanding individual or institutional achievements in preserving the global environment.

At home, the Omani government is conserving its environment by incorporating 21 percent of the country into three categories of ecological reserves. These include nature reserves, which seek to preserve endangered species of animals and plants by preserving entire eco-systems, and scenic reserves. In the latter, natural habitats are protected and any villages included within the reserve boundaries are required to preserve local architectural traditions. Although new buildings may be built and existing buildings may be expanded and their interiors may incorporate whatever modern conveniences the owners may wish to adopt, exteriors of the houses and businesses must retain traditional lines.

The third category consists of resource reserves, comprising vast areas still under study for possible incorporation into nature or scenic reserves. Altogether there are 83 such natural, scenic and resource reserves incorporating rugged mountains, desert sands, fertile oasis villages, rocky coasts and sandy beaches. To enforce the rules inside the conservation areas, and also to protect endangered species outside them, Oman has set up a corps of rangers.

They are instructed to promote public awareness among local communities, of which they are a part; to gather information about wildlife through regular one- and two-day patrols in which they remain in contact with their headquarters by radio; and to prevent lawbreakers from killing animals or cutting down protected trees. The Ministry of Regional Municipalities and Environment backs up activities in the third category by settling claims for damage done by wild animals that can be documented. Recent cases involved compensating a Musandam shepherd for a goat killed by a protected leopard, funding the construction of a higher fence around a date grove in Central Oman to protect it from a pair of foraging tahrs, and catching a poacher in the act of netting birds, after his illicit activities were reported to a ranger by villagers.

Such activities blend almost imperceptibly at the local level with public health and sanitation responsibilities of local governments, and this is the reason Oman in 1991 combined formerly two separate councils into one ministry. The ministry sets national standards for keeping Oman's water supplies pure and for sewage treatment and solid waste disposal. It enforces these standards by requiring environmental impact assessments for all new projects, and vetoing any construction permit that does not meet its standards. The ministry also maintains testing facilities that are available upon request, and uses these facilities for annual tests of the purity and quality of water from wells and other water sources such as Oman's traditional falaj system, which pipes water through covered stone and cement channels from the mountains to agricultural lands and the country's 43 municipal jurisdictions.

Similar strict standards and testing are applied to the country's food-handling facilities, with regular inspections of animals to be used for food, construction of sanitary slaughter houses, and regular health tests for all food processing personnel. Pesticides, too, are closely regulated with ministry guidance on the kinds and quantities of pesticides to be used against specific insects and rodents to minimize the introduction of toxic substances into Oman's fragile environment.

For the past 11 years Oman has conducted an annual competition among its municipalities in which national prizes are awarded to those with the best environmental records. The level of these activities has grown with the passage of Oman's regular five-year plans. From 1975 to 1985 one week of each year was designated for emphasis on such programs. Since then one month of each year has been devoted to environmental activities and competition for the associated prizes. The Ministry of Regional Municipalities and Environment also works closely with the Ministry of Education. One example was the introduction to schools of posters and bilingual coloring books in Arabic and English on the wildlife of Oman, butterflies of Oman, and reef fish of Oman, and a separate booklet on "Fifty Simple Things You Can Do to Save Oman's Environment."

In 1996 Sultan Qaboos will convene a national appraisal seminar to set new directions for these activities, which have made Oman's cities as clean as any in the Middle East, and have protected the country's coastal plains, beaches and its fragile desert areas from the human depredations that are helping to spread desertification in many other parts of the Middle East and North Africa.

Other marks of Oman's zealousness in this regard are the country's participation in the International Maritime Organization for Protection of the Marine Environment, and Oman's cooperation with the International Union for the Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources, and the World Wildlife Fund.

Even the most casual visitor to this once remote and isolated country cannot fail to notice that its tidy streets and carefully maintained buildings—both in its gleaming, modern and expanding capital and its traditional, isolated and picturesque villages—are something special in an area where the architecture reflects both the Arab world and South Asia, but emerges as uniquely Omani. What lies behind the attractive facade is even more impressive.

It is the willingness of a deeply committed ruler to consult the world's top environmental authorities, adopt the strictest of their standards and hire and train the Omani specialists required to preserve in pristine condition a unique culture, way of life, and environment that increasingly is recognized internationally as an irreplaceable component of humanity's global heritage.

Richard H. Curtiss is the executive editor of the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs.