The Jubail Marine Wildlife Sanctuary

A b s t r a c t: The history of the Jubail Marine Wildlife Sanctuary is reviewed. Topography and major coastal and marine habitats He briefly described. During the 1991 Gulf War an environmental rehabilitation plan and the establishment of a Marine Habitat and Wildlife Sanctuary north of Jubail was proposed by the concerned agencies in Saudi Arabia in conjunction with a Task Force .from the European Union. An international, multidisciplinary team of scientists from Saudi Arabia and several EU countries 5ianed their work in October 1991 under the auspices of Saudi Arabia's National Commission for Wildlife Conservation and Development and the Senckenberg Research Institute, Frankfurt. They assessed the ecological effects of the oil spill, developed environmentally friendly remediation methods, documented biological diversity, and developed a management plan for the conservation of the area. After completion of the project in June 1995, the management of the Sanctuary was taken up by the National Commission for Wildlife Conservation and Development.
The Jubail Marine Wildlife Sanctuary, the first marine protected area in the western Arabian Gulf, consists of two large coastal embayment systems and five offshore coral islands. It covers an area of about 2300 km2 with more than 400 km of coastline. The terrestrial component consists of bedrock outcrops, sand sheets, dunes and sabkhas. The intertidal zone is characterised by sandy beaches, rocky shores, salt-marshes and mangroves. Seagrass and macroalgal beds, whip coral beds and coral reefs form the major types of subtidal habitat. The Sanctuary area is unique as it contains prime examples of all the major habitat types of the western Gulf. It includes the northernmost mangrove stands, the largest and most diverse coral reefs, and rhe most important nesting sites in the Arabian Gulf for marine turtles and several species of seabirds.

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