The Bu Tinah Experience on the Corniche

BY EAMONN FITZGERALD ON SEPTEMBER 29, 2011 IN BU TINAH ISLAND


Abu Dhabi’s Environment Agency (EAD) is launching the “Bu Tinah Experience” to raise awareness on the region’s biodiversity. Housed in a large white dome on the Abu Dhabi Corniche, the “Bu Tinah Experience” features a lagoon with turtles and a mangrove nursery. The turtles are part of a rehabilitation initiative that rescues injured animals and then releases them back into the areas where they were found.

Bu Tinah Island is the only finalist in the New7Wonders of Nature from the Arabian Gulf.

The “Bu Tinah Experience” opens to the public tomorrow, September 30, and entrance — every day from 10am to 10pm — is free. EAD has also revamped the Vote Bu Tinah website in a final voting push before the New7Wonders of Nature competition ends on 11 November.

Thabit Zahran Al Abdessalaam, Director of Biodiversity Management Sector at EAD, says: “We created the ‘Bu Tinah Experience’ to people the opportunity to see a small part of the natural haven that is Bu Tinah Island. It is our hope that this interactive experience will inspire and motivate UAE residents to support the Vote Bu Tinah campaign. At the very least, we hope that the campaign will have generated awareness about the importance of our natural heritage, inspiring and encouraging people to actively support its conservation.”

Bu Tinah Island, located around 130 km west of Abu Dhabi, is a core area of the UNESCO-designated Marawah Marine Biosphere Reserve — the first marine biosphere reserve in the region. It is home to coral reefs, mangroves, Hawksbill turtles, dugongs, dolphins, Ospreys and Socotra cormorants.