PHOTO: LARA EL SAAD

Salamo alaykom
(Hello/peace be upon you)

I am a 21-year-old Lebanese living in Dubai, in the United Arab Emirates. I hold a degree in environmental health science and am an active environmentalist, working at the Emirates Diving Association, a group involved in educating young people and adults from the diving and the non-diving communities about the importance of conserving the sea.

As the project manager I am involved in planning and organizing the environmental activities. We have a Turtle Tagging Awareness Programme, where we educate people about the turtles of the UAE, including taking them to help tag the turtles. Our Coral Monitoring Project involves training divers on monitoring the life of the corals, identifying potential threats and keeping an eye out for indicators of coral stress.

We encourage our volunteers to take part in underwater clean-ups and hold competitions to see who can collect the most trash. This gives them a sense of closeness to the marine world. They begin to see the effect of throwing a drink can into the sea, and learn to give back to the marine environment while practising a sport they enjoy.

Besides being passionate about the environment, I love sports, playing in a women's soccer league and enjoying basketball, squash and running. And, of course, I am a certified scuba diver.

Sport and environment are highly related. A good sportsperson needs good health, healthy lungs and good stamina. If we live in an environment with air badly polluted by cars and industries, all the particulates, chemicals and other hazardous material will end up in our lungs, since we tend to inhale more as we exercise. So an unhealthy environment can both damage our health and prevent us from playing as hard and as well as we could.

My motto is: Respect the nature that you were given, for it is nature that always gives but does not take; when you take care of it, it will take care of you.

Ma' Alsalamah
(Goodbye)

Lara El Saad is A UNEP Tunza Youth Advisor for West Asia.