View of part of the Fujairah Corniche and the Hajar Mountains in the Background

Sunday, March 25, 2007

Fujairah’s ‘Breathtaking Coastline’ is often Trashed

This guy (and his mate in the tractor) at the Fujairah Municipality do a magnificent job cleaning up the beaches every day with this hungry vacuum cleaner and sand sifter.

But give a couple of hours and the waves will belch onto the beach all their foreign bodies—sandals, bottles, packets, glass, rope, polystyrene plates, leftovers from the picnic—and the beach soon becomes a shambles.

Visitors to Fujairah will be attracted when they read web sites like UAE Interact and this posting entitled, ‘U.A.E. Culture and Heritage: Fujairah’:

“Fujairah, with a breathtaking coastline of more than 90km, is the only emirate situated entirely along the Gulf of Oman.….”

“Fujairah is a place of considerable natural beauty where jagged mountains and valleys sweep down to the settled palm-fringed coastal plain.”

It sounds idyllic but it doesn’t always square with the beach I walk every day.

It is a breathtaking coastline but visitors will want their money back if we don’t put our rubbish in the bins and stop heaving it out of cars and boats.

Geoff Pound

Image: Fujairah Municipality Beach Cleaner and the relentless rubbish.