Beaches without basic facilities
Dear Sir,
With the summer on its last leg, it’s that time of year, once again, for trips to beaches in Qatar. During the recent holiday break, we had a family outing at the Dukhan beach. We had been looking forward to it.
But on reaching the beach we were a little disappointed to discover that it had no toilet facilities. This is especially hard for those coming to the beach with children.
There are also no showers or changing rooms for those wanting to take a dip in the sea. Beaches should all have these facilities plus some outlets from where one can buy water, juices and snacks. They would be very useful for those coming to the beach with children or elderly people.
If these services could be provided on the beaches before the “winter season” starts, it would be a great boon to the public.
BMSL, (Full name and address supplied)
Conservation of resources
Dear Sir,
Johan Rockstrom, in his article, “ Leaving our children nothing” (Gulf Times, October 1) has put forth a strong argument, highlighting how important it has become for each one of us to evaluate the destruction we are causing to the nature during the course of our commitment to improve the living conditions across the world.
Though the task of feeding 800mn people below the poverty line is daunting indeed, there is little point in robbing Peter to pay Paul. We cannot afford to burn up the resources that we have now and leave the generations to come staring into space.
In this context, the letters from Kezia Daniella and Ramachandran Nair were also valuable ( “Doing my bit for recycling” and “Focus should be on conservation” respectively, Gulf Times, October 1).
While the technologically advanced countries need to share the knowhow with the lesser privileged nations, to use more efficient environment-friendly methods to increase productivity, the developing nations should strive to prevent wastage.
This brings us to another challenge prevailing especially in the Middle East countries. The successful utilisation of the hydrocarbon resources has generated a false sense of affluence among consumers in the region. The prosperity has impacted the younger generation in terms of their value system – there is very little thought of conservation. The use-and-discard mindset is rooted among the young generation, and there is no room for reusing and recycling. The young ones need to know that all resources that we use are not infinite. We need to keep in mind that the Middle East imports most of the essential items of day-to-day life and there is a high price being paid for that in terms of logistics, time and money.
The endless quest for modern-day comforts is eating away the natural resources. We all need to take a step backward and look at natural ways of sustenance based on the place where we live and conserve the resources. For every item of resource saved, mother earth lives that much longer. Every penny saved is every penny earned, so to speak.
More informative articles on recycling and reusing for conservation need to be published in the media.
Suresh Sarma, (e-mail address supplied)
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