Protecting the oceans with action, not speech
By Dr. Omar Al-Attas, Head of Environmental Sustainability, The Red Sea Development Company
Days that celebrate, highlight, and elevate our planet’s natural wonders often go in tandem with dire warnings, distressing images, charts, graphs, numbers, and statistics. While this is important – our planet is indeed facing an environmental crisis – it can be easy to overlook the fact that these days are also a celebration.
What could be more important than celebrating the resource, habitat, and basic necessity to life that is the ocean? These mighty bodies of water cover more than 70 percent of the surface of our planet.
Our oceans produce over half of the world’s oxygen and absorb 50 times more carbon dioxide than our atmosphere, while transporting heat from the equator to the poles, which regulates our climate and weather patterns.
Apart from these global life-sustaining environmental elements, according to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), “oceans contribute $1.5 trillion annually in value-added to the overall economy, which could reach $3 trillion by 2030. They also provide more than 3 billion people with a source of food, a reliable source of protein and nutrition. Home to 50-80 percent of all life on Earth.”
But, how do we fix the relationship between humanity and our oceans? It is impossible to ignore the impact of our species on our literal life-giving seas: acidification and pollution, illegal fishing, plastic waste, and biodiversity loss.
TRSDC has been invited to the UN Ocean Conference, hosted by the governments of Kenya and Portugal in Lisbon. There will be discussions by the world’s top marine leaders and thinkers on science-based innovation, solutions including blue technology, and efficient uses of marine resources.
“Blue Talks” have been taking place the world over, with discussion panels reviewing the core issues on the agenda for the conference. I was honored to participate in the session held in Riyadh, where we joined together for a healthy debate and presented our thoughts and innovative solutions to the ocean’s problems.
At the start of the session, we were told that ahead of the Lisbon event, the UN Secretary-General, António Guterres, requested that delegations “come with a plan, don’t come with a speech.”
And that couldn’t tie in more with the ethos of TRSDC. We aren’t coming with a speech, and we’re already one step further than simply planning. We are proactively following our carefully made plans and development led by science, with the aim of regenerating instead of merely sustaining.
Too often, tourism has had a disruptive and negative impact on the natural environment and local people. But traveler expectations today are changing, with the rise of sustainable tourism shifting what people want when they go on holiday. They are looking for exciting and immersive experiences, cultural exploration, and, importantly – guilt-free travel.
TRSDC is spearheading a regenerative ethos that emphasizes going beyond ‘no harm’ and simply maintaining, to having a positive impact, both environmentally and socially. This philosophy is at the heart of everything we do.
By their very nature, coastal developments have historically had a detrimental effect on ecosystems, altering delicate marine environments. The Red Sea Project and AMAALA are vastly different – they are unique and truly ‘world-firsts’. We are utilising the projects as a vehicle for improving the environment.
We intend to contribute a 30 percent net conservation benefit by 2040 in the project area. We are implementing several ambitious initiatives, including plans to expand key habitats like coral, seagrass, and mangroves that encourage biodiversity to flourish. We also built the largest landscape nursery in the region in which we are busy growing some 25 million plants and trees.
To protect our underwater ecosystems, we intend to establish the region’s largest No-Take Marine Protected Area (MPA) for coastal areas inside the 500-meter isobath. This represents an estimated 7,458 km2 of marine habitats that will be sheltered and actively improved because of tourism development. It will also contribute to the broader ambitions of Saudi Arabia to increase the coverage of MPA’s from the current 5.5 percent to 30 percent by 2030.
Implementing the No-Take MPA and the resulting recovery of fish populations is key to regenerating the marine environment. The benefits to the marine environment of the fish populations is being restored to a natural state tenfold. The fish impact the entire system and help to restore a natural balance in their coral reef ecosystems.
We anticipate this will increase fish biomass by over 30 percent and lead to significant net positive economic benefits for the surrounding communities. In addition, with increased biomass, we can also explore innovative uses for excess microalgae, including carbon capturing and the production of alternative fuels.
As an integral part of the Kingdom’s Vision 2030, we’re committed to ensuring this blue economy benefits local communities through the equitable expansion of our tourism industry. While our innovative approach contributes to environmental regeneration, we are equally prioritizing social regeneration. We are actively creating socio-economic benefits and employment opportunities for the Saudi economy by leveraging the full force of tourism’s transformational potential.
As we inject 120,000 jobs into the local economy, we enable knowledge transfer, enhance professional development opportunities, and develop local talent.
The net positive expansion of Saudi Arabia’s green and blue habitats and biodiversity is essential to the global fight against climate and ecological crises, and is an invaluable legacy for current and future generations.
That’s something to be excited about – a Happy World Ocean Day, every day.
For more information on TRSDC, visit their website.
