RIYADH:The National Center for Wildlife Development recently launched a research-based field survey program for the Red Sea, which includes the study of more than 400 sites covering important marine environments such as coral reefs, seagrass beds and mangroves.

The study aims to identify areas of high sensitivity and environmental importance in order to establish a future baseline preparing for marine protected areas in the Red Sea, to sustainably preserve marine ecosystems and their biodiversity.

The Red Sea has unique biodiversity and includes 2 percent of the best coral reefs in the world, which the center focuses on evaluating and protecting.

The shapes and sizes of the coral reefs vary in the Red Sea, which contains more than 300 species, including unique varieties.

Given its attributes it is an important tourist destination and is characterized by tolerance of harsh environmental conditions compared to other reefs.

This research program comes as an extension of the center’s efforts to study, re-evaluate and rehabilitate coral reefs in the Kingdom.

In February 2022, the National Center for Wildlife, with the participation of the global research vessel OceanExplorer and the national research vessel Al-Azizi of King Abdulaziz University and King Abdullah University of Science and Technology, launched an expedition from Jeddah Islamic Port.

The trip, in which 126 researchers took part, included scientific research activities to study marine life in the Red Sea, and also conducted the first comprehensive survey of previously unstudied areas starting from the Afifi area in the southern Red Sea to the Gulf of Aqaba in the north.

The trip aimed to provide a clear vision of the Red Sea’s environments and to study mammal species, biodiversity, and physical and chemical environmental characteristics, as well as biomaps of coral reefs, seagrass, sea turtles and other creatures that abound in the Red Sea.