And. Cats are. One of the richest nations per capita in the world. Its experienced a Rapid Development since oil and natural gas were discovered here in the early 1000. 00 hundreds. Megaprojects keep changing the gulf nations landscape. But the qatari coastline and its desert are also the source of a different kind of natural wealth. And if left unprotected qatars native species and those who use the tiny gulf nation as a stopping point as part of their long migration. Could be endangered as a result of an awesome habitat. Im stephanie that in the waters off the baton coast and we are surrounded by whale sharks the biggest fish in the rush of the new stuff. And this edition of coca aljazeera will take you on a journey with 2 cultures diverse wildlife will be joined by a Marine Environmentalist and also 800 haitian ist and well be discussing the impact the potential Uncontrolled Development could have on these that diverse wildlife species that in here if im protected. It all started a few months ago we wanted to know more about the presence here of the do go or seek out. We have in the region the 2nd largest of the world. This is how we 1st met dr mussen yes i am married environmentalist and professor from catarrh university responsible for taking this beautiful journey images. And also from Exxon Mobil Research theyve been studying the do and why they gather here in such large numbers. We have to play both weve got here are of the. Wonderful low 100 and so these are the only thing we do and yes so i mean its important to protect it while theres a very important you know without that they go through enough im going to go on the water but the most important for us how to protect it from the fishing net how to protect it from. Removing this food which is near the sea grass. A lot of sea grass area already. We were incredibly lucky to find the courage on another day. But the reality is that these animals are endangered. On a deserted beach in the north of cattle are a hint at why their numbers are decreasing. And then within 5 minutes to 6. Because of that do not see any physical evidence you know how do you stop this from happening. Just to protect their. Own from that people. Should protect them we should do something. The survival of our planets natural treasures depends on the protection of wildlife of habitats of entire ecosystems just an hour north of qatars capital doha we continue our journey with a professor to find a landscape many would be surprised as here in the gulf. A lot of fish one here crops big and this. Really is critically colored coastal area for them. So really its been if it could get to the country the city has like hundreds of rules and these thoughts of looking good they had a briefing from the from this. So they breathe through one of these actually and really benefit you can think about it when the high tide is coming. Small fish they go in and hide to clean these roads pro from predators exactly because the big fish kind of goes from that growth is a beautiful to see if. You know its an 6. Everything. We return at high tide to see the difference. So its completely different at high tide. This is where the big fish coming no to feed. And so theres a lot of development that is happening here how concerned are you about the impact that thats going to have on the mangroves on a place like this. Since i started my career in the marine science in this is area really still protected and this is a really very good sign. Only im you know thinking about the future if there is some things have been and we need to do this india for a reason rather this is going to be you know. Disappear from the from our mad and mixed generation coming they will see nothing and this is my only concern. And what kind of an impact is pollution have on the mangroves only the human impact will be able to really leave when they are leaving the area like a blast the only thing please maybe you can see there is one plastic bag its already there it can be really hurting the mangrove its twisted all around the branch in my hope its this plastic will be just burned in this country its possible you know so many country this is all good because this is killing really a lot of even land animals like camels i see a lot of people just throwing things out of their car there seems to be a bit of a lack of awareness. Is it any different with so i hard to believe but not this this is bitter. But it is time but if we stop the blessed think were going to really do good job to protect the environment also. On the northern tip of qatar a small taste of just how enormous the worlds prostate problem is. Heads a group that organizes beach cleanups and urges the community to get involved. Well everything that you see here is being washed off from the ocean but whenever i say that you know i want to be sure that we dont create a misconception that its always washed up be someone elses trash is not our try it is our trash you know 80 percent of the plastic that is found in the ocean comes from land sources so that plastic bottle that you and i just threw away whatever we were at the cornice from the bark at a sports event is going to find its way to the beach and eventually the ocean is going to dump it back on the beach if that didnt sink to the bottom of the ocean the scale of it how bad because this i mean its just littered everywhere theres plastic everywhere or just to give you a little bit of scale and understanding beach weve done in the last year we did 14 cleanups we had 1600. 00 volunteers that came on all those clean ups and we collected 20 tons of trash in 14 clean ups the biggest cleanup on record that weve done was in may of last year during ramadan we had 300 volunteers in one hour we collected 5 tons of trash in probably 2 or 300 meters of beach so show me a little bit about what you find because you can see light bulb loads of plastic bottles and absolutely so if you dont mind what we can do is we can grab a black bag very quickly and just emulate what we do in are clean ups so you guys can see how quickly we fuel up a bag. So i think by now if you get the point right yeah we spent 45 minutes maybe we filled up a bag each bag is our own quote feels. So you can do the math and you know weve literally been in a tiny. We havent moved we have a move i mean we and we both had a little bit we havent even really started to clean it so when we bring a 100 volunteers 300 volunteers you can see how we can just call her a lot of ground and end up with 450 of these bags in one hour. So that tells you the magnitude of the problem that we face. The going to pandemic means theres been less of us out and about less of us traveling busy. We took a boat of qatars northern coast with dr mussen to gauge the impact. Have you observed a change in nature. Left people on the water left people out there when they should not just in the anybody with even the vision you can see a clear sky everywhere the water to become more clear more fish coming close to the. Things where the human lives the disaster they could see you doing very well without outright. If you leave something alone anything even if its done there is recover a solution in them blood but the tell me. This area is also rich in bird life. Thousands of cormorants have been feeding all around qatar throughout the day and now is as the sun is setting coming back to where they spend the night and its incredible to see theyre just flying over our heads thousands and thousands of them. Birds are having a passion. Ive been watching birds for more than. I was a hunter so when i started photographing birds so i decided to stop pumping. Because actually they show me something i i wasnt seeing before. We have. Spotted like more than 350 birds in qatar so its a good thing qatar its like a station for these birds while they are mad waiting for my place to other. But to get the shot patience and blending in are key. And how does it feel when you get that perfect shot that youve been waiting for for so long like forget hours right days years sometimes exactly sometimes when you are focusing on like were birds and you want to get very nice growth will take weeks i like to think for sure i spent. 3 weeks just one shot while his diving in the water theyd be fish and coming out of. The ministry of the environment is good news in place to protect some of these birds during their breeding season the hunting season run september to march now side of that it is illegal to hunt were told you hunt you also appreciate nature and understand the need to protect it how do you balance how how can you find a balance between those 2 things actually its the balance between these 2 because we are hunters and we belong to traditional people we used to hunt also like our parents the traditional thing. So when you come and you tell them please dont. Be like a cow and you need to fight for protecting this but maybe it will change in about 5 or 10 years later i hope so. Then just as we finished our interview i think were going to. Talk. A little light relief a wind gust frees us from the unbearable heated greenhouse effect of the tent. Its slightly cooler at door and our journey continues. We had south. This time we want to take a look at mans efforts to try to help nature because of what we have destroyed. Guitar environmental expert muhammad ali has been involved in the placing of artificial reefs along this coast. Ideally would have naturally. Morning why do we no longer have. The filter supply we notice in 96. 98 its the heat wave that came and killed maybe 90 percent of the course the reefs or coral i mean and also you know in the sea but there is also. Increased navigational movement in the gulf you know the minister to put pressure on the oil in this is not to use the you know says make search and how they use you know wave but theres also effects mammals you know we put pressure on them to compensate so the compensation consist of you know replacing coral reefs sea by sea grass you know or programs to study marine life so this is all compensation from the oil industry so the reality here is that there is a lot of Development Oil and gas urbanization how do you balance thats a reality that is going to change how do you balance that with preserving and conserving nature the number one difficulty is the mentality you know mentality of people we deal with you know when we tell them what youre doing is has an effect on the environment they dont believe it on or god created this and god will protect them yes but also god gave us the knowledge to do that you know so once we go over this obstacle sometimes we deal with with good you know. People in charge and they understand them actually they push into the environment the balance is by compensation that otherwise there is no other way to to balance it you know. Qatar has some beautiful coastline beautiful beaches and despite it being the heat of summer weve come here to the northeastern coast because we want to find out more about whats happening under the water and to do that we need to speak to a couple of marine biologists and a captain of that starting these waters for almost 15 years theyre currently in france were going to give them a call. Hi john isis thing on. So we are 8 just north east on one of the beaches tell me a little bit about the changes youve seen happening particularly when it comes to underneath the water since you 1st arrived the coastline of qatars been developing really rapidly in the last 10 years. Especially when it comes to source of rustler fan to the long sea or this coastline has been developing really quickly with the per se and all these projects on the coast and thats a big. Cause for the development is actually. Affecting the habitat the fishing is certainly had an impact theres a lot more fishing now than there was and the netting you see a lot of nets now washed up on structures no beaches. We didnt used to have you know those brutes. I was going at the moment you also work with the oil and gas industry i just want to get a sense of like in terms of compensation is there are there are laws in place that try and compensate for whats being damaged how is that working the ministry of environment is actually quite strong in qatar i can i can say from working in other places of the world especially in the indian ocean that cattle its got quite a Good Management for the Marine Environment slows and practice proved to be efficient so for example when a no in gas company. Is doing a new project that will. Probably have an impact on the Marine Environment. They have to make an Impact Assessment and report to the a. M. A. Me and together with the minister of environment they have to put in place some strategy of mitigation and compensation going back to the grief installation. Which we just did a recent one with 200. 00 units which was for 600. 00 tonnes almost of relief 3 days after we put it there we thought wed done it and it was fish living there really was before it was just a barren piece of ground 3 days later we had fish moving in. The arabian gulf is a very special sea its extreme it can go to 15 degrees in the winter to 35. 00 degrees in the summer so theres like 20 degrees range of water temperature and for course for example this is completely insane on the Great Barrier reef if the temperature of varies by cheating griese above the normal they start reaching and suffering and eventually dying in cata the species we have and the adapted to the harsh condition so they thats what we call them super course because how can this core survive in this kind of conditions where the rest of the course on the planet die with very small a range of temperature so its really interesting scientifically that we have some species here in qatar that can survive. The worst temperature that we planning in 2100 prediction of 1st sea water temperature in the stroller thats why its worth protecting them as well because the they might be the future of of course as well you know. We had back out to sea for one of our final trips and its the one im the most excited about. Were looking to find the worlds biggest fish. There. You know. Whats happening now you know the. Spawning. So its a melting frenzy to find one female and theres like 34. 00 males around there so as she jacks the eggs they you know the inject also their sperm and its a big fight the strong one which will you know. That spend one and the biggest amount of eggs you know. And what happens this frenzy the sound. Sharks they will detect it you know and they will gather all the sharks in there they will go and they will come to the spot. And then you know once the spawning stops you will find hundreds of sharks and they come and feed on the area and how many how many well sharks usually observe this. Normally and one aggregation the biggest maker we recorded by a drone is 350 with one shot you know but in our database we have more than 600 you know its a world record you know and why do they aggregate in this area in particular the main thing in this area is the temperature the what you see if you go 5 or 6 kilometers out of this area the water temperature is about between 32 to 34 average 32 degrees centigrade in this area here. To about 2728 you know its the best or the ideal temperature for fish to breathe you know so when they breed or spawn near. The shark comes for the protein you know they come specifically for the fish caviar. A bucket list moment as they say. A 1st glimpse of these enormous gentle giants. Its hard to describe the feeling of swimming alongside them watching them feet. Feeling like tiny. In significant yet privileged guests in their world. The sun sets on our journey through katters natural wealth. Just minutes from the capital doha. Its incredible. I like it and even. My computer screen its this theres megson already its amazing i remember that every day what would you like to see. More to protect. Like what would you like to see what you hear and read. One thing kid everything as if this is the most important thing 2nd if you think for the new generation maybe the old b. Will be used to use this. Example why i want to hunt in here its culture is a long time ago that is a limitation of the food but no its handle everything available so with the kids education and health of affected driving your car over the nearest caring hand this very for other reason i like falcon level weve got to protect the community and fellow we are going to handle. Its the end of our wildlife travels it stand months. Many are not aware of just how rich the small desert country is when it comes to nature increased awareness hopefully will lead to more efforts to protect and conserve all these diverse back tickles of nature. Not just through Government Policies but its also down to us as individuals to do our part in protecting the land and the waters. That we are privileged to share. A face can tell a story without uttering a single word. And knowing god can guide us. A simple touch. Inform us. The unconventionality of life witnessed through the lens of the human mind. Is what inspires us. Witness documentaries on aljazeera. Meet maria driven by poverty into prostitution and drugs as an early age now as a mother shes turning her life around with the help of a theater a group of colombian women fighting the challenges they face through that all aljazeera was compelling series which showcases fresh filmmaking talent from a round the globe if you find a lot in america presents acting lessons on aljazeera. Play an Important Role protecting it with. Ringback the law. Hello im Maryam Namazie in london the headlines now over 100000 protesters have taken to the streets of mints today to demand once again that president Alexander Lukashenko steps down it marks over 2 weeks of antigovernment demonstrations triggered by his declaration of victory in an election the opposition says it was regs the crowd defied warnings of the army being deployed against them and marched towards the president ial residence so i gave a reports
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