The agency executes its mission through several satellite centers, which include: the Marine Environment Research Center (MERC), National Avian Research Center (NARC), Terrestrial Environment Research Center (TERC), Environmental Services Center, Communication and Education Center, Information Technology Department, Human Resources Department, Finance and Administration Department and the Strategic and Project Development Unit (SPDU).

Each of these centers specializes in different areas and operates its own projects. ERWDA's MERC focuses on protecting the Emirateís marine environment. One project is a working group on fisheries management, which studies the Emirate's fishery resources and creates a strategy to further develop them. Other marine initiatives include the conservation of the endangered dugong--a marine mammal related to the manatee of Florida ñand studies on nesting turtles. ERWDA conservation initiatives on land include plans for the eventual reintroduction into the wild of the Arabian Oryx, an animal which breeds successfully in captivity, but which became extinct in the wild in the early 1960s. Last October, ERWDA hosted a conference on the protection of the Arabian Oryx, inviting delegations from all the Gulf states. ERWDA's NARC is pioneering a captive breeding project for the preservation of the equally endangered Houbara bustard.

ERWDA also works closely with the Abu Dhabi Islands Archaeological Survey, ADIAS, again headed by Mohamed Al Bowardi, on a research program designed to identify archaeological sites of relevance to the country's national heritage and to incorporate these into planning for a network of protected areas. ERWDA and ADIAS are also collaborating on the collection of data for an emirate-wide Environmental Database.

ERWDA is also involved in efforts to engage the general public in environmental issues and to raise environmental awareness among young people. The agency arranges field trips for Abu Dhabi secondary school students to educate them about the desert and marine ecology systems. In cooperation with Shell, it created an Enviro-Spellathon Program aimed at raising upper and primary school students' environmental awareness while improving literacy.

Acknowledging the necessity to protect the oil-rich Emirate of Abu Dhabi from potential oil-production accidents, as well as from oilspills caused by accidents to foreign shipping passing through its waters, ERWDA has produced a Coastline Oil Spill Protection Priorities Atlas, which provides information that will be required in the event of an oil spill.

At the World Summit on Sustainable Development recently in Johannesburg, ERWDA launched its most recent and most ambitious project. Named the Abu Dhabi Global Environmental Data Initiative (AGEDI), it is being carried out in partnership with the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP).

The initiative describes itself as a "collective and collaborative global response and an innovative catalyst for national, regional and global actions to provide high-quality, relevant, updated and comprehensive environmental data at an appropriate scale for decision-making" at the local, national, regional and global levels, and is nothing short of an effort to provide to the entire world reliable quality environmental data in a cost-effective way.

The idea for AGEDI was conceived in February this year, when a ranking of countries' environmental sustainability index presented at the World Economic Forum's annual meeting put the United Arab Emirates in last place. The government realized that the placement was largely based on outdated and inconsistent data,and that data from developing countries was difficult to evaluate because ofunreliable collection practices and inadequate training of those collecting and analyzing it.

Sheikh Hamdan bin Zayed Al Nahyan, UAE Minister of State for Foreign Affairs and Deputy Chairman of ERWDA, described AGEDI as an initiative that "seeks to resolve the problems of financial, technical and human capacity for environmental data gathering and sharing in developing countries. Central to the initiative is the use of advanced technology--which will make the process of data collection much easier than it has been in the past."

Klaus Toepfer, Executive Director of UNEP, applauded "this important and forward-looking development by the United Arab Emirates, which will assist us in our work of early warning, monitoring and assessment of the planet's environment through our Global Environment Outlook process." Similarly, James D. Wolfensohn, President of the World Bank, hailed it as "bold, innovative and timely." And Mark Malloch Brown, Administrator of the UN Development Programme, said that modern, up-to-date methods of environmental data-gathering "are important to accelerate sustainable development."

Majid Al Mansouri, ERWDA's Secretary General, said that the UAE government would also open a dialogue with the Global Environment Facility (GEF)--the body which provides financing for the implementation of international agreements on biodiversity, climate change and persistent organic pollutants- with a view toward UAE's eventual participation in the GEF.

ERWDA has pledged US$5 million in initial funding for AGEDI's HQ Pilot program that will be established in Abu Dhabi, cost sharing with UNEP for the Zayed Center for Environmental Information and Assessment. It will also cover the costs for a chain of international and regional meetings. ERWDA is planning to jointly mobilize resources with UNEP to identify additional donors for a total of US$30 million to support pilot schemes in other regions of the World. ERWDA's objective is to enlist other governments, international organizations, foundations, academia, civil society and the private sector in helping--and in the process benefiting from--the improved quality and availability of environmental data.