Dendra has announced that it has completed its first annual seeding season in an operation that aims to restore 1 million mangroves in Abu Dhabi.
The strategic project falls under the Abu Dhabi Mangrove Initiative (ADMI) and supports Abu Dhabi’s Climate Change Strategy as the UAE.
As per the project, Dendra is capturing remote sensing data and analysing over 20,000 Ha of coastline and has already identified 196 ideal sites for rehabilitation, deploying its custom seeding drones to support the restoration of one million mangroves.
Here, Dendra employs RestorationOSTM, a “restoration operating system,” which enables more effective large-scale mangrove restoration.
It provides a full end-to-end restoration solution, including data capture and analysis, site selection, field ecology, seed harvesting, processing and logistics, seeding, ongoing ecosystem monitoring and interventions.
The 1 million mangroves are included in the 1st annual cycle of Dendra’s pledge to plant 27.3 million mangroves, contributing almost a third of the government’s target to restore 100 million mangroves by 2030.
The 100 million mangroves will help increase the country’s cover to 483 square kilometres and see 115,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide per year being captured.
There are more than 12 mangrove sites across the country, with the UAE currently home to more than 60 million mangrove trees, covering 183 square kilometres and 43,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide being captured each year.
Speaking about the project, George Ibrahim, General Manager of Dendra Middle East, said: “We are extremely pleased to have completed the first phase of this annual restoration cycle and are looking forward to ramping up our operations over the coming years.
“Our team has made significant progress, working through challenging summer temperatures they have captured and analysed a large area of the Abu Dhabi coastline using satellite and drone captured high resolution imagery. From this analysis, we identified a range of optimal sites for mangrove seeding. The seeds have now all been spread across 196 sites using our custom drones that enable Dendra to seed over 100K mangroves in a single day, and we’ll start to see the results in a matter of weeks through our ongoing field ecology and drone based monitoring efforts,” he explained.
Adding: “As a company that was born with the ambition to make a positive difference to our environment by leveraging the latest cutting-edge technologies, combined with ecology best practice, we are determined to build a sustainable future for all. With the UAE hosting COP28 earlier at the end of last year, and 2023 being the Year of Sustainability, there is more emphasis than ever on climate change and biodiversity loss, and mangroves play a fundamental role in addressing these environmental challenges.”