KUWAIT CITY, Jan 6: The head of the Kuwaiti diving team, Walid Al-Fadil, announced that the team has “recovered 9 ships, boats and marine vessels weighing 101 tons to protect the marine environment,” reports Al-Rai daily.

This is in addition to lifting 124 tons of discarded fishing nets and harmful waste to the marine and coastal environment from more than 30 locations along the coast and sea of Kuwait.

Al-Fadil stated the team, which was formed 35 years ago, “carried out 125 environmental tasks and activities during the past year, and completed its comprehensive periodic maintenance of 107 marine anchors to ensure safe anchoring of boats and yachts around the islands and most importantly around coral reef sites.

With regard to ensuring maritime navigation, he stated that “the team periodically monitors several sites in the Kuwait sea, to ensure the safety of navigational movement, and places warning signs when a boat sinks to avoid collisions, in addition to cleaning dangerous sites such as concrete in the north of the South Island, the Jaber Bridge, the sea anchors on the Asherij coast, and the iron pillars on the Fintas coast and also removes floating objects, whether wooden or plastic, that cause navigational hazard.”

He pointed out that “the team is conducting joint awareness campaigns with the regional office of the United Nations Environment Office in West Asia to enhance joint cooperation within the global campaign (Clean Seas) launched by the United Nations Environment Organization to protect the seas from plastic waste.”

Al-Fadil stated the team has continued for the ninth year its weekly campaign (the mobile beach cleaning campaign), in cooperation with more than 9 governmental and private agencies, the most important of which are the Ministry of Education, the Kuwait Municipality, the Ministry of Social Affairs, the Environment Public Authority, the Public Authority for Youth, Zain Telecommunications Company, and the National Bank of Kuwait.