Lake al-Jabul and its surroundings is a nature reserve

Damascus-SANA

In order to preserve the components of biodiversity in Aleppo Governorate, the Ministry of Local Administration and Environment created a reserve and a biosphere that includes the entire surface of the Sabkhat al-Jabbul Lake and the lands around it.

In a statement to SANA’s delegate, the Director of Biodiversity in the Ministry, Engineer Bilal Al-Hayek, explained that the creation of the reserve aims to achieve protection and preserve the components of biodiversity and to ensure the preservation of the ecosystems that characterize Sabkhat al-Jabbul as a wetland system and to protect the socio-economic relations of the reserve’s natural resources with the local communities living within and nearby. Of which.

Al-Hayek confirmed that the decision to establish the reserve considered the towns and administrative units surrounding Sabkhat al-Jabbul Lake, such as al-Safira, Deir Hafer, al-Jabbul, Abu Green, Fajdan Rasm al-Nafl, al-Mamoura, al-Hajeb, Masoudiya, and Qleia, part of the reserve, which has a total area of ​​235,544 hectares.

According to Al-Hayek, the reserve includes three areas, the first is central and enjoys strict protection, and human activities are not allowed in it except for the purposes of scientific research. Studied human activities In the third transitional zone surrounding the buffer zone, various organized agricultural and economic activities and studied activities can be implemented without exposing natural resources to the risk of degradation and extinction.

Al-Hayek indicated that the ministry, in partnership with the relevant authorities, will prepare a plan to ensure the sustainable management of the natural sabkha resources in a manner that does not conflict with the protection of biodiversity.

Ismail Ambassador