COP18: The Mangroves

As part of the COP18 programme of activities the Qatar Foundation has organised a series of excursions to environmentally interesting areas around Qatar. Today, I was able to go on an eco-tour of the El-Khor coastal Mangroves. The organisation may not have been A+ and we may have left almost an hour late but it was well worth it. The natural beauty was incredible:  what a way to inspire future generations as to the need for conserving our environment.

The area I visited boasted both cultivated and wild mangroves. It is run by the Friends of the Environment Centre and a Flower Each Spring initiative, and is sponsored by Sheikha Moza bint Nasser, the wife of the Emir of Qatar, who is at the head of many progressive initiatives. They organise regular visits here by local school groups to try and educate them on the importance of the environment, conservation and recycling.

Our official guide was Ahmed, from the Qatar Foundation, and he educated us on the unique nature of the mangrove trees in Qatar, how they are the only plant that can survive in that saline environment in their country and the effect this has on greening the coast and providing a habitat for a variety of sealife, birds and insects: giving us a brief overview of the reasons behind the project.

We were then introduced to a project run by Qatar Foundation International called “mapping mangroves”. They work with local student ambassadors to raise awareness of the mangroves and the need to conserve them amongst local youth. They have created an App that can be used on iphones, ipads and android phones which allows anyone to visit the mangroves, take photos and enter details about them, thus creating an interesting way to learn but also to map the extent of the mangroves themselves.

My guide whilst mapping was Imad, a fifteen year old student from Al Waqra who was apparently chosen for his relatively good English, he told me. The mangroves are right on the beach, their roots protruding out of the soft wet sand so we all removed our shoes and got ready to get dirty and wet. Sinking my toes into the sand, I probably enjoyed this more than I should have, but my childish side rejoiced. Who doesn’t enjoy mucking about in wet sand and in such beautiful surroundings too?

The mangrove trees are great natural carbon capture devices and provide a habitat for some beautiful creatures. As we went round taking photos and mapping what we saw, we included descriptions of much wildlife too. We saw different kinds of birds, some huge colourful dragonflies, and all sorts of different kinds of tiny crabs, as well as tiny fish. As someone who has lived in cities all her life, I was embarrassingly excited by all this much to the amusement of my guide, although he shared my enthusiasm.

I had the most wonderful day and I think it is safe to say, if more young people were able to experience the mangroves as I did and learn more about environmental issues at the same time, then we would surely inspire the next generation to live better, in greater balance with the environment, then we have in the past.