A university professor and avid diver, Dari Alhuwail is hardly your ordinary volunteer. He truly sees himself as a “guardian of the sea.” Writes Jethu Abraham.
Dr Dari Alhuwail is a modern-day hero in every sense of the word. When he is not working as an assistant professor at Kuwait University’s Department of Information Science, he is with the Kuwait Dive Team, plunging deep into the blue waters to protect the country’s marine environment.
“I am saying this in all honesty and without the tiniest bit of cheesiness or corniness: we are ‘Team Mission Impossible,’” he states with the unmistakable pride of someone who has been associated with the volunteer diving team for close to thirteen years now.
The Kuwait Dive Team is a dedicated group of diving professionals committed to protecting the marine ecosystem through salvage operations.
Officially, Alhuwail handles international relations, communicating with associations such as Project AWARE and Ocean Conservancy, but he also takes regular trips to monitor the corals and clear sea debris.
Alhuwail’s relationship with the team goes back to his high school days, when he would see press releases of the Dive Team’s initiatives for picking up marine debris, sunken boats and beach trash. “For me, their efforts symbolised something greater,” he explains.
CORAL WATCH
“All of the work that we undertake essentially involves protecting Kuwait’s coral reefs because the reefs are one of the most important elements in the marine world,” Alhuwail explains. “For example, on a regular day, we lift sunken boats and vessels, move debris and ghost nets from the waters, as well as moor buoys to safeguard the reefs so that the boats don’t anchor there.”
In 2010, Kuwait experienced its worst coral bleaching season, with almost 80% of its reefs affected. Alhuwail says they are now recovering, but more efforts need to be expended to reclaim what is lost. “We have a coral transplantation project in place where we try and build new homes for the reefs, and we have artificial reef installations around Kuwait.”
Alhuwail cites amateur diving and spearfishing around the reefs as some of the human activities that can be avoided to protect these areas. “Amateur divers have lesser control over their buoyancy, and sometimes, when you swim too close, your fin breaks off a coral—it might have taken 10 or 20 years for that bit to grow.”
UNDERWATER 911
“No, we are not your regular 911,” says Alhuwail when trying to explain the range of work he undertakes as part of the Dive Team. However, the members respond to some calls, for example, about sunken boats, which may pose a threat to any passing vessel. Even then, many factors need to be considered before the team takes a trip.
“The sea has certain rules that need to be observed— high tide, low tide, wind speed and direction, wave height, and add to that the things we need to do our homework on— location of the operation, threat to life, additional resources requirement and so on.”
The Kuwait Dive Team’s social media pages contain a wealth of short video clips documenting its underwater projects. Most of them involve dragging tonnes of rubbish from the water and cutting through abandoned fishing nets. “It’s one thing for people to see videos online, but if you have to realise how bad it is, you have to actually swim in rubbish,” explains Alhuwail.
“Another important project that we consistently do is raising awareness about the issues we face at sea. We do regular beach clean-ups, organise talks, share our brochures and materials, and document all of our work at sea so that people get to know the importance of the actions they do. For us, it is our civic duty to intervene because this is our home, our country and our planet.”
Alhuwail strongly feels this as his clarion call for undertaking every single project or trip to the sea. “We operate in a grey zone— when it’s not clear who has to do the job, we go in.”