Red Sea preservation
Posted by DavidM in Wildlife | 26 April 2008
Being by the Red Sea was a great opportunity to snorkel around the coral reefs and view a wide variety of sea life. It was my children’s first experience of swimming in an exotic sea and they loved the abundance of colour and shapes under the water.
Egypt has some of the most stunning coastal areas and they make a real effort to protect it. All the guests were briefed on Red Sea etiquette – don’t touch, don’t feed, don’t take.
There were still one or two idiots who ignored it and damaged the coral but by and large people of all ages enjoyed the underwater sights with no impact on the fish, crustacea and coral.
In fact, by making it a tourist attraction they protect these areas. Whether you like it or not market forces still drive much behaviour and by making the economy dependent on a healthy ocean it’s in everybody’s interest to maintain and preserve that environment.
The Ras Mohammed National Park, protecting the marine environment, now covers 250km of coastline along Egypt's Sinai peninsula.
Compare that to the UK with only 3 highly protected marine areas, covering 0.001% of UK seas. The recently published Draft Marine Bill looks to extend that to around 20% in 4 years.
Our waters harbour different treasures to Egypt but are no less important and key areas should be protected.
