World And National Campaign To Protect These Species

WORLD AND NATIONAL CAMPAIGN TO PROTECT THESE SPECIES

The Al Fahim Group of Companies, in partnership with Emirates Wildlife Society - World Wide Fund for Nature (EWS-WWF), today launched a nationwide campaign to protect the ghaf tree, a native species that is rapidly disappearing from Arabia's desert environs.


The campaign will promote awareness about ghaf among UAE residents, and callupon them to vote for it being designated National Tree of the UAE.

Said Saeed Abdul Jalil Al Fahim, Chairman, Al Fahim Group "The ghaf tree has supported the people of Arabia for centuries. We believe it is important to educate the public on the importance of preserving this important part of our heritage. Appreciating the value of ghaf to our culture and environment, our late president, SheikhZayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan actively protected and planted the species. Today, with threats to the ghaf mounting, it is vital to safeguard this plant that is integral to life in the desert."

A savetheghaftree.org website has been developed for the campaign. Al Fahim and EWS-WWF will send out a variety of mail - letters, flyers and posters - that will educate people about ghaf and encourage themto access the website and plant a symbolic sapling in a virtual ghaf garden. Actual plantation of ghaf trees will also be taken up by Al Fahim and EWS-WWF. To garner support for ghaf conservation, people will be requested to vote on line in favour of the species being designated UAE's National Tree.

Stated Majid Al Mansouri, EWS Board Member "Ghaf groves in the UAE are succumbing to pressuresof unfettered development. The tree's accelerating decline implies a loss in our cultural and biological heritage. EWS believes that assigning ghaf the status of National Tree will underscore its significance and lead to its protection."

The campaign to save the ghaf tree will run over two months - December 2006 and January 2007. At the close of the campaign, Al Fahim and EWS-WWF will presentto federal authorities, the will of the people about ghaf as National Tree. They will also plant 1 ghaf sapling for every ten planted by participants in the virtual ghaf garden.

Victories in 2011, Campaigns for 2012

With your help and your support, the Center for Biological Diversity achieved major successes in 2011 despite a hostile Congress, a bad economy and, frankly, lackluster WhiteHouse leadership on wildlife protection, climate change and other crucial environmental issues. Our victories included a massive settlement to push 757 species closer to Endangered Species Act protection, a 20-year ban on new uranium mining around the Grand Canyon and the protection of 6 million acres of federally protected habitat for species around the country. Without you behind us, we trulycouldn't have done any of that -- so many, many thanks.

And here's to making 2012 yet another high-impact year. Together, we can save hundreds of species and their habitats and push the planet toward rapid, rational action on global warming. Below is a brief list of the Center's 2012 priorities.

Save the Endangered Species Act

Right-wingers in Congress have put the Endangered Species Act intheir crosshairs, reviving the kind of ugly rhetoric used in years past by radical anti-environment politicians like Richard Pombo. They're plotting new ways to undercut the nation's most important law for saving species from extinction. We won't let that happen.

The Center for Biological Diversity will fight every gambit to weaken the Act and strip it of the funding endangered species need forsurvival. We're testifying before Congress, dramatically ramping up our organizing work, mobilizing tens of thousands of people in defense of the Act and the animals and plants it saves, and adding important new data to the debate that show the vast majority of species protected by the Act -- from the bowhead whale to Florida's wood stork -- are on the road to recovery and shouldn't be abandoned...