By Muntaha Al-Fadhli (with photos) KUWAIT, Jan 10 (KUNA) -- The Ornithological Society of Kuwait called for regulating grazing in the country to preserve the animals' habitat, the environment and the human natives.
The chairman of the society, Abdel Rahman Al-Serhan, said in a statement to KUNA that the country's unihabited areas and landscapes suffer from exessive cutting of trees, grazing and altering features of the meadows. "We are being so slack in terms of protecting the environment," he added, calling for the enacting of special regulations to safeguard the uninhabited areas.
Some people have been unprooting shrubs using digging machines and selling them as livestock feed in the fodder market, Al-Serhan said. Others cut down trees and chop their trunks to feed their animals. "Such negative practices that can be seen .. must be stopped." The region stretching from the north of Al-Salmi road in Al-Jahraa to Al-Salmi border checkpoint and the plot of land from the west of Abdali road in Al-Jahraa to Al-Abdali border station have been subject to excessive grazing. "And now after the rain fall, the number of randomly-built cattle barns have multiplied." Only a few trees have survived the human campaign of annihiliation in the lands around the inhabited regions, and those offenders have been targeting these trees with uprooting and if conditions remain unchanged there will be total annihilation of Kuwait's wealth of animals and plants, he warned.
He called for special regulations to protect the habitat, such as setting up a schedule for grazing, where it can be prohibited for some time during the year to give time for the plants and shrubs to grow. Moreober, grazing should be governed with a set of rules and laws, such as specifying the number of the heads of the animals to be let loose in the desert areas.
He also made other proposals such as prohibiting usage of vehicles in the meadows, called for a media campaign to enhance the public awarness of the necessity of protecting the environment and establishing new natural reserves to protect various animal and plant species from extinction. (end) mf.na.rk KUNA 101658 Jan 10NNNN