The beautiful Hawksbill turtle was once found in abundance in the waters of the Arabian Gulf. However, over the past few decades , it has been pushed to the brink of extinction due to the callousness of humans and it is now on the IUCN list.

Fortunately there is now a lot of awareness to save this beautiful green turtle. I am an active member of a marine conservation NGO and recently we participated in an awareness campaign for saving the Hawksbill turtle. The venue was on the grounds of the plush Rotana Hotels who sponsored this event.

We set up a stall with a lot of leaflets and flyers which gave important information on the state of its conservation. There were toy turtles which we urged the visitors to buy and thus, adopt a turtle. The funds we raised would be used for geotagging of the turtles – in this way the marine biologists would be able to track the movement of the turtles , map their feeding and breeding grounds and protect these delicate habitats from destruction. This would thus help to maintain the balance of our fragile marine ecosystem and help in biodiversity conservation.