Attending the Open day at the Emirates Marine Environmental Group (EMEG), located beyond Jebel Ali, our host, Major Ali, the lynchpin of this non-governmental organization introduced us to the stalwart work carried out by this non-profit group.
Rehabilitating injured turtles, guiding the recently trapped whale shark out of Dubai marina and the heroic task of relocating corals to a safe haven when the massive Palm islands were in planning, are some of the projects undertaken by this group.
The Jebel Ali sanctuary is the base for the group and we were invited to hear about their work and engage in a beach or mangrove rehabilitation session.
Choosing the beach, complete with plastic gloves and bin bags the group headed off to walk and clean the long beach. As always, discarded plastic abounds, bottles, bags, and caps together with containers, fishing rope, nets, sacks and so on, all of it detrimental to our marine life.
A long beach to clean…
Apart from injuries caused to the ocean’s creatures, eventually plastic enters the food chain and for the future generations, the resulting health hazards are as yet unknown.
Education is the key to our children growing up with respect for waste issues, both in the ocean and on land.
There are some interesting design projects, utilising ocean waste and I hope that more awareness continues to instigate and fund projects designed to tackle the problem.
Several hours later, the beach was clean, a good walk and an overall consciousness of how each individual can make small inroads into this problem.
Excellent work is being done by EMEG in this region and it felt good to be part of it.
All this bagged in two hours…
Interesting links:
http://www.emeg.ae/pages/home.aspx
http://www.parley.tv/#fortheoceans
https://www.facebook.com/Parleyfortheoceans/timeline
http://www.iflscience.com/environment/adidas-has-created-new-shoe-and-it-s-load-garbage
Travels in the Middle East and beyond 
Thanks for posting on this. It is a global issue and such a shame. You might enjoy reading a book that deals directly and indirectly with this issue and is fun to read: Moby Duck.
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Thanks travel Magnolia for the comment and recommendation. I had heard of Moby Duck book but forgot about it, so your comment was a good reminder and it is now my read for the week!
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Fantastic work. Thank you
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Thank you. I’m off on a beach walking weekend plus rubbish bags! I will probably end up being remembered as that eccentric bin bag woman!
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The only municipal dump in the whole Paphos area has been closed ….. You can imagine what’s happening!
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Oh no, what is the alternative?
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Good on you and your band of beach walkers. My little granddaughter (7) gets the message from me and from her school, so much so, that she now picks up bits of plastic on the sidewalk as we walk along, unless they’re just too gross. I don’t blame her for not wanting to pick up the gross stuff. She told me yesterday she’s ready for a long grabber so she doesn’t have to touch the stuff any more.
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Thank you, Kathryn. Good on your granddaughter, hopefully by the time she grows up, her actions will be commonplace.
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I share that hope.
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