The UAE’s waters may not look rich in wildlife from the beach, but below the surface the marine life is remarkable, and constantly under threat. In this episode of Guy in Dubai, Paris joins one of the projects working to protect it.
He meets Ali Al Suwaidi of the Emirates Marine Environmental Group, whose love of the sea goes back to his grandfather’s stories of pearl diving. He describes how meeting Jacques Cousteau after he started scuba diving in 1971 changed the way he thought about protecting the ocean.
The focus is the group’s turtle conservation work. Paris learns why hawksbill turtles matter so much to coral reefs: by eating algae and sponges, they stop them crowding out the coral. Although they can look common on a reef, hawksbills are critically endangered.
Paris then helps with a health check before release, looking for cracks or chips in the shell. Barnacles are left alone, because removing them can damage the shell and may hide an underlying health issue. The episode ends with the turtle’s release and a call for everyone to respect the environment.
Key moments
- 0:00 Introduction to sea turtles
- 0:44 Marine conservation in the UAE
- 1:42 Origins of the conservationist
- 3:13 Emirates Marine Environmental
- 4:59 The role of turtles in reefs
- 7:22 Health check and release
- 10:08 Call for environmental respect
Adventures like this one feed directly into The Grit Code, Paris’s keynote on grit, resilience and high performance. Planning an event? See Paris as a keynote speaker in the UAE. Browse more episodes on the Adventure TV shows page.
Full transcript
Read the full transcript
She's at least 30 years old probably maybe even 40 or 50. You'll see the way she is moving she used alternate flipper front flipper motion So when we release her here, we'll lift up this board and she's going to shoot into the sea and go for a swim She's very keen to get back to the sea yes We better not leave her too long What on earth have they got there? [Theme Music] It's often assumed that the biodiversity of the UAE is relatively little. Given that we're based in the desert, you can be forgiven for thinking so. Let's not forget that we're a nation surrounded by sea with rich and diverse marine life and with this comes our responsibility to ensure that we protect the oceans. So today I've come to Emirates Marine Environmental Group
to meet with major Ali Al Suwaidi to see some of the conservation projects he's got going on [Dramatic Music] What was your your motivation for starting the project? I mean you mentioned earlier that you come from a pearl diving family so the the sea is in your is in your bones my blood also My name is Major Ali Saqr Sultan Al Suwaidi I am the president of Emirates Marine Environment Group and general secretary of WWF Emirates Nature You know when I am young we go outside of Dubai, where is the beach and we stay like four months there, and always I am in the sea and that's where the dreams start you know to find a ship or to find the big pearls or you know one of the dreams for the small boys From
that time I started listening to my grandfather and my father about the pearl diving and from 71' many things changed in my life because I start scuba diving and I met Cousteau and he changed you know many things in my mind. You know how to take care about the marine, how to take care about the whole sea, and that's where you know my journey starts Emirates Marine Environmental Group is involved in a number of different wildlife, marine and terrestrial conservation initiatives My name is Tiffany and I am Director of Marine Operations and a conservation specialist at Emirates Marine Environmental Group Our three core focal areas are protection of Dubai's resident hawksville turtle population. Restoration of our coral reefs within coastal shores and reforestation of Jebal Ali sanctuaries mangroves I start EMEG in 1995 and that's
for very important reason. You know after the Gulf war you know it have oil pollution, we start you know cleaning the harbour and make harbours safe and we start also with that education program. Because you know this rubbish coming from people and we need to educate them. And alhamdulillah you know we succeed with that. The new generation they understand you know if they throw something in the sea, it makes problem for turtle for the fish Also we do fragmentation their coral reefs because in 2017 we have big problem in the Gulf The temperature rise and most of the coral reefs die. We start thinking that when they didn't die because they are strong and with fragmentation we done in Sir Bani Yas a big project really with many species. Acropora, parietals and also if you
come to the marine mashallah, you will see the turtle now in Dubai big numbers and you see a shark That's funny when they told me to bring my wetsuit they forgot to mention the sharks [Action music] One of my favorite things to do here is when we do the conservation drive along the beach and we do monitoring of the sharks and rays. Of particular interest for me is the black tip reef sharks. The pups that we get around here I love to see them in the bay and we monitor their numbers and see that they're a healthy population [Dramatic Music] But I came to meet the turtles Globally there are seven species of sea turtles but in the Arabian Peninsula we have the green turtle and the hawksbill turtle, and these two are the most
common turtles that we come across here So what is it that attracts turtles specifically to these parts of the water around the UAE? The hawksbill turtles are here because we have some beautiful coral reefs so this turtle is very much associated with coral reefs. The maturity of their diet consists of sponges soft coral sea and enemies and actually also here in the arabian gulf they eat a lot of algae and the reason why it's important that we have these turtles on our reefs is because algae and sponges they compete for space on coral reefs so if we don't have turtles munching it away then there's going to be too much sponges too many too much algae and not a lot of area for the coral to grow Hawksbill turtles are actually critically endangered right So
although you see them in abundance in a reef overall they're actually critically in danger which means they're below the threshold which can sustain a healthy population One major factor that we have ongoing at the moment as a global population is climate change Turtles are reptiles, they're cold-blooded. Which means they're susceptible to temperature changes and volatile changes that we get here in the Gulf and indeed in other areas can affect turtles profusely with their mating, with even the gender so the warmer it gets the more females are born, so when we're talking about population sizes of females and males the males is actually a much smaller percentage Sounds like good odds if you're a male turtle, but it just goes to show that even the smallest change has effect on the whole species By now there'd
be a lot of talk going on about turtles, but I was wondering when am I going to get to meet one? So between March and June of each year hawksbill turtles returned to Dubai to lay their nests at this point in time we have about 26 nests on the beach and we were lucky enough last night to come across a nesting female Before releasing the turtle back out into the ocean we perform a health assessment on the beach and check for any pre-existing flipper tags or satellite tags that might be able to determine where she's come from What should we call her? Well I'd like to. It's a her. We're going to name it after teenage mutant ninja turtle, but we'll call it Donatella Donatella Sounds great. Where do we put the name? So put
her name over there So what we're going to do, is we're just going to have a quick look at her overall identifying features. So how big is she what's the health of her carapace over here and then we're gonna get her back into the water so as you can see she's ready to go She's ready to go okay, so do you have a measuring tape Yeah so i'm gonna pass this over to you This is 74 centimeters 74 centimeters Width as well? yes, the broadest part of her shell or carapace 66. Perfect. We're gonna have a quick look at her shel and just make sure there are no major cracks. So as you can see no major cracks or dents here. This is from a pre-existing barnacle that's been removed. If we go over the
side of her shell you can have a look as well, you can feel it's really smooth. So we have no major chips or cracks in her carapace. If she's covered in barnacles, you want to leave the barnacles on her shell because if you chip away at a barnacle like you can see here It ruins the the the outside of the shell Exactly, it can damage the shell and the thing too is we don't know if there's an underlying health issue that may be the reason that these particles have started to form Okay but this one looks quite healthy. Not a lot of barnacles, no cracks on the shell, She's a big girl and she's ready to go to the ocean Okay well let's not keep her any longer because I think she's ready to go.
I'm gonna have a little swim with her that's alright? Absolutely just make sure that you maintain a safe distance from her, stay clear of her path and she'll guide you out to sea Super fantastic [Action music] She was off like lightning. I was hoping to keep up with her and wish her goodbye into the wild but she's pretty happy to be back among her environment but what an incredible experience and we wish Donatella luck We as a human being you know we start making rubbish on the beach and now the beach is dirty and it's something really bad. I hope people realize the sea and the animal they are before us we must respect. When you go to people's house you must respect yourself The sea is house for many species you know [Soft music]