After spending eight months at the bottom of the sea off Umm Al Quwain, oil tanker The White Whale has finally been raised and all those who were involved in the mission deserve our thanks.

The operation to lift the ship was a complicated one, with officials and workers always under tremendous pressure. If they had not been fully cautious or made the slightest of error, the vessel could have spilt her load of 100 tonnes of diesel into the sea. The mission was not made any easier by the high winds and waves.

While the cost of recovering The White Whale is estimated to be around Dh3 million, the cost to the environment, if the mission had failed, would have been incalculable. The marine ecology of the Arabian Gulf is already under threat from over-fishing, heavy use of desalination plants and energy production operations.

What is needed is strong legislation to protect the irreplaceable ecology around the Gulf. The UAE is taking a leading role in maintaining its marine environment. Sadly, though, fragile sea life is at risk from over-fishing.