The Qatar Government has plans to set up exclusive family beaches in Qatar, the Gulf Times announced today.Even better, SCENR, the Supreme Council for Environment and Natural Reserves, has plans to curtail the use of plastic bags in the country.
The statements were made on the sidelines of a beach clean-up in Al Khor. Hopefully, SCENR will extend this clean-up to other beaches in Qatar: a trip to any popular public beach will see bare-footed children playing in sand littered with glass.
Unfortunately, SCENR didn't protect the mangrove swamps in Al Wakra. I was shocked during a recent visit to see that the mangroves swamps had been uprooted and replaced by a pool of water.
The mangroves weren't just a picturesque addition to an otherwise fairly unremarkable town. Just a small area of mangroves can produce thousands of tonnes of biomass. These feed into the food chain, and the loss of these mangroves is likely to lead to a decrease in fish stocks.It will also prove a disaster for local bird life - both herons and egrets are among the birds that frequent Qatar's mangrove forests.
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