Q: A primary focus of the Living Oceans Foundation is coral reef research. Why?
A: The world’s coral reefs are in crisis. These natural wonders that occupy only a fraction of one percent of the marine environment are considered to be the most endangered aquatic ecosystems on earth. Approximately 30 million of the world’s poorest people depend entirely on coral reefs for food and income, and the estimated total annual value of products and services provided by coral reefs globally is US $375 billion. Beyond the tangible products and services that reefs provide, these beautiful ecosystems harbor an invaluable array of natural biodiversity, the loss of which will be tragic to our descendants and jeopardize the overall health of our planet. By some estimates, 20 percent of the world’s coral reefs have been lost in just the past few decades. Another 15 percent or so are seriously threatened and may be lost within the next 10 to 20 years. These are alarming statistics, and the Living Oceans Foundation is dedicating the majority of our efforts to accelerate scientific knowledge and to assist resource managers who are actively engaged in conservation activities.
Q: You are an accomplished diver. Do you ever join the scientists and researchers you host aboard your vessels on their dive trips?
A: I enjoy it very much to scuba dive with the scientists during research missions, and I join them whenever I get an opportunity. From 2006 to 2009, the Living Oceans Foundation conducted four major research expeditions in my home waters of the Red Sea. This was a very successful research program, and I am proud to say that the Living Oceans Foundation has vastly advanced the scientific knowledge of Saudi Arabian coral reefs. Another benefit was that, since the research was close to my home, I was able to dive with the scientists for a short time during each of those expeditions. It gives me great pleasure to be able to interact with, and observe, the scientists at work and to share in their passion for preserving these valuable ecosystems. Diving on coral reefs is an amazing experience. Where else can you get so close to wild nature and personally observe such interesting creatures at close range? Humans are so foreign in the marine environment that even the biggest marine animals are unafraid and let us swim among them. Instead of preying on their lack of human fear, we should respect and protect all life in our seas.
Q: Your Golden Fleet is outfitted with high-tech tools and systems to assist scientists and researchers in their efforts. What are some of the items they most appreciate?
A: One of most unique assets aboard the Golden Shadow is an elevator at the stern of the ship that can lift 12 tons of weight. It was designed to recover and deploy a Cessna Caravan floatplane. The aircraft conducts a water landing then cuts its engine and glides into the elevator well. Then the elevator lifts the aircraft onto the deck of the ship for stowage. The Living Oceans Foundation has used this aircraft for remote sensing operations. A sophisticated sensor is mounted on the aircraft to create high-resolution habitat maps of coral reef ecosystems. The elevator is also used to launch and recover a 36-foot catamaran to support all of the research divers. Additionally, the ship has a well-equipped laboratory and a decompression chamber if ever a diver is stricken with decompression sickness. Fortunately, it’s never had to be used, but we keep it in top operating condition just in case. Safety is a very high priority during all of our operations. Shipboard duty and diving operations are inherently dangerous activities, and we’re proud of our safety record. The Golden Shadow can support up to 24 embarked scientists on one deck of the ship. That is in addition to up to 24 crewmen for a total ship capacity of 48 people. Finally, I would like to emphasize that the Golden Shadow is a full ocean-capable vessel with an impressive endurance for supporting research in the most inaccessible places around the world.
Q: This year, you’re embarking on a long-term exploration of coral reefs around the world. What are the regions you’ll visit, and what do you hope to learn?
A: We are very excited to have recently embarked on a five-year Global Reef Expedition. This is a dream come true for me. We have been planning this ambitious program over the past four years. I’m sure you can appreciate the immensity of effort required to plan and prepare for a program of this scale. The first research project on the Global Reef Expedition itinerary just began on the 27th of April, 2011, in an area known as Cay Sal Bank, Bahamas. The Golden Fleet will travel from east to west around the world. We’ll focus on coral reef research in the Caribbean Sea for the next year, researching numerous remote sites in the Bahamas, St Kitts/Nevis, Jamaica, and Colombia. Once we’ve completed that work, the ships will transit the Panama Canal to begin work in the Pacific Ocean. The first major research work in the Pacific will take place in French Polynesia. Researchers worked aboard the Golden Shadow in French Polynesia in the late 1990’s before the Living Oceans Foundation was even formally established. It will be scientifically interesting to observe the changes that have occurred these past dozen years. Eventually we’ll make our way to the coral triangle. Located in waters off the coasts of Indonesia, Malaysia, Papua New Guinea, the Philippines, Solomon Islands and Timor-Leste, the Coral Triangle covers almost 1.6 billion acres – an area about half the size of the United States. This region is home to 3,000 species of fish and nearly 500 reef-building coral species (75 percent of all known coral species), while its shores provide nesting grounds for six of the world’s seven species of sea turtles. Following research in the Coral Triangle, we’ll proceed to the Indian Ocean, and then towards the end of the five year program we’ll return to the Red Sea, where the Foundation has recently completed a four-year program of mapping and surveying the rich coral reef ecosystems along my coast of Saudi Arabia.
Q: Ultimately, what can all of us learn about the marine habitat thanks to the research completed to date?
A: The research being conducted on the Global Reef Expedition is focused on conducting baseline surveys of the coral reef environments, creating high-resolution habitat maps of the seafloor, and assessing the health, threats, and resilience of global coral reefs. We conduct applied scientific research aligned with the information needs of coral reef resource managers in each country and region we will be visiting. This is a very different approach than the academic world takes. Universities are primarily interested in answering basic scientific questions and proving hypotheses. We have the freedom, resources, and motivation to conduct applied science to assess and characterize these coral reef ecosystems on large scales in order to provide resource managers and governments with the scientific knowledge needed to enact new policies, establish Marine Protected Areas (MPA), establish coastal zone management systems, etc. That’s our niche and our value-added to conservation efforts. With the coral reef crisis unfolding at a rapid pace before our eyes, time cannot be wasted. We must actively manage these valuable resources to ensure sustainability for the long term. The days of senseless over-exploitation of marine resources needs to end quickly, and we need to live in harmony with the ocean. We now realize how important ocean health is to the planet and human health, and it’s time we harness our collective resources to ensure that our environmental health is sustainable for generations to come. I believe in the concept of “generational equity.” That concept is based on the fairness doctrine applied to subsequent generations so they receive the environment in the same or better condition than the generation before them. When you think of the effort we put into raising our children, ensuring they have the best opportunity possible for schools, that their health is looked after, and that they make good decisions. At the same time, we’re not doing the best job in looking after the environment that our children will adopt. All of the efforts we put into raising our offspring will be in vain if we leave them with an inheritance of a degraded earth and depleted natural resources. That’s why I am supporting the Living Oceans Foundation and why we have begun this ambitious Global Reef Expedition. What better reason could there be?
Richard Guy
Hello Prince Khaled Bin Sultan. November 6 2014
I read your interview with Megayacht News and was particularly interested in the story of you as a young boy and what you learned wondering in the desert. I have extracted that part of your interview and include it here. The Extract: “As a young boy in Riyadh, I spent some time wandering the desert, and was surprised to find the fossilized remains of sea creatures,” he explains. “I realized then that much of the flat, endless desert of Arabia was in fact an ancient seabed.” Of course that is exactly what the Arabian desert is: ancient seabed. Incidentally that is what every desert in the world is: ancient seabed. But Prince Khaled that is just the start of the story and I would like to see your Living Ocean Foundation pay more attention to that lesson you learned so many years ago. You could take your work so much further if you could influence your foundation to look at what has been happening to our seas since then. You are from Arabia the cradle of civilization and this presents a wonderful opportunity for your foundation to undertake meaningfull work in the area of “The Mysterious Receding Seas”. Are you aware that Nineveh, the Capital of the Assyrian Nation was once at the mouth of the Euphrates River when the Gulf waters lapped the shore of Niniveh. Niniveh is today 1000 feet above the Arabian Desert and 700 miles from the Gulf waters. Did you know that Babylon was also, once, at the mouth of the Euphrates River but today the ruins of Babylon are 400 miles from the Gulf and 125 feet above sea level. History also tells us that Ur of the Chaldes was once a busy teeming seaport on the Gulf but today Ur is 250 miles from the Gulf and approximately 100 feet above sea level. Baghdad had an harbour on the Gulf in ancient times but today is 350 Miles inland and 135 feet above sea level. So Prince Khaled I just want to show that the desert floor you walked on as a boy is indeed ancient seabed. I also want to let you know that as you walk through your Palace the highly polished floor on which you walk is laid on ancient seabed. Which brings me to the purpose of this treatise. Reef protection and rehabilitation of shoreline marshes are well intentioned and worthwhile efforts but they miss the most obvious lesson you learned as a boy. The same regression of the seas that made the Arabian desert, and all the deserts of the world, is still ongoing and destroying reefs and coastal wetlands but we fail to see the forest from the trees. One major reason is the rising sea hysteria which is pre-eminent in the media. The sea is not rising and will not because of what I am trying to show. Wetlands are suistained by inshore sea levels. As sea level ebbs lower it drains the wetlands and they dry up and disappear. They no longer can sustain growth because their water source has departed with the receding sea. The EPA in New York is attempting to replant Jamaica Bay by dredging and flooding the Marsh but it is a temporary and futile effort: the area is going dry because the sea level is falling.
So Prince I hope my words have not fallen on deaf ears. Our increasing arid lands is because of this phenomenon which we adamantly refuse to recognize; I hope you will with your influence?. I have a YouTube series “The Mysterious Receding Seas” also on Google. My Tel: 867-445-8012 and email: richardguy9@gmail.com
Richard Guy P.Eng.
Read more: Megayacht News Leadership Series: Prince Khaled bin Sultan bin Abdulaziz, Living Oceans Foundation – Megayacht News https://megayachtnews.com/2011/05/prince-khaled-bin-sultan-bin-abdulaziz-living-oceans-foundation/#ixzz3IKAs222H
Richard Guy
My comments speak for themselves previously in this forum. Please take heed that we do science a great injustice when we ignore what is so obvious. I speak of “Receding Seas” Why cant you not realize how much we lose when we ignore what Prince Kahled observed in the Saudi Desert ie fossils of ancient sea life. Doesn’t that make you curious and want to know more. Is that why we are told the opposite i.e. that sea levels are rising. Is it to keep us ignorant. Do you realize that fossils Prince Kaaahled observed in the desert are proof that Isostasy is a fallacy. Isostatic Rebound does not exist it should be debunked. What is really happening is that our earth is expanding and that is what has been mistaken for Isostasy all these years. If Isostasy was real we would have seen evidence on other planets but they have no water. Water is the proof that the earth is expanding for it recedes and keeps receding and it has been receding for millions of years as our planet expands to almost twice its original size. It is not that the earth is gaining mass that is the point it is not gaining mass it is gaining volume and losing density. If you can get a grasp on just that point I will continue to tell you where the increased volume is coming from. Again it is so obvious yet it evades us it is as obvious as the fossils the Prince saw as a boy in the desert but we cant see the forest from the trees,
Richard Guy See: The Mysterious Receding Seas” on Youtube and Google. TeL; 867-445-8012