Qatar marine environment and coastal areas

The state of Qatar was one of the founding signatories of the "Kuwait Convention for the Protection of Marine Environment and Coastal Areas Development" in 1978, together with other Gulf Cooperation Council members. The Permanent Committee for the Protection of the Environment emanated from this agreement in 1981, and Qatar was made chair of it. One of this committee’s major achievements was the supervision of combating oil slicks originating from the wells in the northern regions of the Gulf or the oil tankers crossing its regional waters. On the international level, Qatar is a signatory to a number of international environmental agreements, such as: the Vienna Treaty for the Protection of the Ozone Layer in 1985, the Montreal Protocol on Ozone Depleting Sub-stances in 1987, the Basel Convention for Controlling the Transportation of toxic wastes in 1989, the International Convention for Climate Change, the Convention for Biological Diversity in 1992 and the Convention for Combating Desertification in 1994.