What might have been the first thought of Fabian von Bellingshausen when he became the first person to see Antarctica in 1820? How would this gargantuan block of inhospitable and awe-inspiring ice, right at the edge of the world, seemed to his eyes? Very few people have visited Antarctica and even fewer have been able to articulate what they felt when they first laid eyes on it. “It's pretty intense. Like wow...what is this place?” remarked Abdulrahim Abdullah Turkistani, a 28-year-old Saudi who visited Antarctica last year as part of the environmental awareness initiative 2041. The initiative is founded and led by polar explorer, environmental leader and public speaker Robert Swan, OBE, the first person in history to walk to both the North and South poles. Swan has dedicated his life to the preservation of Antarctica by the promotion of recycling, renewable energy and sustainability to combat the effects of climate change. In 2002, at the second World Summit on sustainability held in Johannesburg, Swan was given a global 10 year mission: to inspire young people, industry, and business on the issues of energy conservation, renewable energy, and to promote the positive roles individuals and business can play in the road to world sustainability. The Antarctic Treaty was signed in 1959 by 12 countries; to date, 46 countries have signed the treaty. The treaty prohibits military activities and mineral mining, supports scientific research, and protects the continent's ecozone. It ends in 2041 and Swan aims to have it renewed. Antarctica is the world's southernmost continent, encapsulating the South Pole. At 14 million square kilometers, it is the fifth-largest continent in area and about 98 percent of it is covered by ice that averages at least 1.6 kilometers in thickness. Only cold-adapted plants and animals survive there, including penguins and seals. The beginning of a dream Turkistani is a Communication Systems Engineers with Shell, and is currently working at Petroleum Development Oman LLC. Swan approached the Vice President of Shell Middle East with the idea of sponsoring “young Arab professionals” in the region to join the 2010 expedition as part of a leadership and environmental awareness program. The Vice President approached Shell's Young professionals netowrk in the MENA region, a regional employee network Turkistani and a group of colleagues had devised for Shell, and they launched a two-week competition where applicants had to write a letter stating why they wanted to visit Antarctica and how this would benefit Shell. Turkistani and 60-70 others applied and only two – him and an Egyptian man – were selected to be sponsored by Shell. “They even bought our socks and shoes!” he laughed. I wondered why Shell would invest so much in environmental awareness initiatives when the company shares such a difficult relationship with environmentalists. “Shell does a lot of community work and relationships are very important to them,” he explained. “They are always looking for opportunities to teach employees. They have a program where you can apply for six months or a year out in the jungle in the Amazon studying how many different varieties of spiders live in one tree, for example. But you have to be aware, you have to grab opportunities.” Turkistani did just that and as a self-confessed adrenaline junkie, he felt no apprehension whatsoever about going to Antarctica for two weeks. “Human capabilities are amazing. You'll be surprised by them. If you want something, you can do it. And I like to test myself. I like crazy adventures.” The expedition is, understandably, fiercely competitive. “To participate in this expedition, one guy rode a bicycle from Geneva to Dublin,” Turkistani stated. “I didn't do anything compared to that.” But Turkistani's spirit of adventure may have genetic roots. His grandfather migrated to Saudi Arabia from Turkistan, a loose geographical term first used by Persian geographers and referring to the Central Asian region. Born in Makkah, he spent his childhood first in Colorado in the United States and then in the city of Leicester in the United Kingdom as his father was constantly relocating for his studies. Since 1996, however, Turkistani has been resident in the United Kingdom, completing his Bachelors in Communication Systems Engineering from Birmingham University and then a Masters in the same field at Bristol University. He joined Shell four years ago and has since been posted in Dubai, Egypt and now Oman working with their petroleum division. “I'd like to go to a new place with new challanges next, like Brazil!” he laughed. The last frontier A group of 65 individuals from around the world were selected for last year's expedition, and given three days' training in Argentina, before being shipped out on an icebreaker to Antarctica for two weeks. The trip involved crossing the notorious Drake Passage, a body of water between the southern tip of South America at Cape Horn, Chile and the South Shetland Islands of Antarctica. “The passage has some of the roughest waters. Some compare it to Formula One races – that's how challenging it is,” Turkistani said. “The waves were all eight meters high. It wasn't that rough and yet half the people were lying around passed out!” He added: “It wasn't too extreme in terms of training. It wasn't too physically challenging, for example. But they taught us things like camping and what to do if you get blisters. A lot of people have never been in situations like that so it was all necessary. They told us what to do and what not to do. For instance, they told us not to touch the penguins and to wash our boots every time we step out on land. They didn't want us to contaminate the place with, say, an apple seed we crushed in Argentina. You even had to take the lint out of your pockets!” But Turkistani is convinced that it is all worth it. “It's to protect the place. It's a beautiful, pristine world.” Joined by the first Emirati woman to visit the continent, the Muslims in the group managed to pray together in the hostile environment, an experience he calls “memorable”. “We prayed together there. You basically put the wind behind you when you pray, right? Well in Antarctica, the wind always blows from the center outwards, so finding the direction of the Qiblah is impossible,” he remarked. Turkistani had always been intrigued by the bright turquoise color of the glaciers and had always thought that photographs were doctored to pronounce that vivid shade of blue. “That color is real, can you believe it? It's a sheer blue tone. It's because of the way light filters through the ice. All the colors are so stark there.” The group was visiting during summer in Antarctica so they were blessed with very long periods of daylight. “The temperature wasn't that cold. This is the only time you can enter, because the ice melts and allows you to move around,” Turkistani explained. They lived in the ship and only camped on certain sites, faced with the extraordinary experience of pegging tents in the snow. “You have to dig a hole first and then hammer the pegs down in the frozen ground below.” There was an overwhelming list of rules to life in Antarctica. “You're not allowed to take anything outside except for your camera bag and water bottles that have attached caps.” “One day it was very windy and snowy so we had to cover our cameras with plastic covers,” he said. “Somehow, I didn't wrap mine properly and the plastic flew off and away. I felt very bad because any kind of waste is really frowned on. The leader of our group ran straight after it but couldn't catch it and it fell off the cliff we were on. All I could think about was this video they showed us, during our training, of this plastic bag that gets eaten by a penguin and causes its death. “Luckily, there was a guy on a zodiac below and he caught it. There was not a single piece of waste on the whole continent except for my bag. Can you believe that? I felt really guilty for throwing that one bag, and here you don't feel that bad about committing the same act every day. It made me think: ‘Why don't we take care of our homes, where we live, the same way?'” ‘Green is good, but' “I met very interesting people on the trip. I met some tree huggers of course, but some people were truly into sustainability,” Turkistani recalled. “Green is good but you have to understand how to make it practical. We don't need to protect the planet, we need to take care of it. We can't stop global warming, but we need to live responsibly, to ensure that coming generations can enjoy the world that we are enjoying today. We can't protect the environment – it can take care of itself – we just need to ensure sustainability.” He confessed that he has never been very “green” but that he realized that the trip was about legitimate environmental concerns and prepared for it accordingly. “The trip made me understand the importance of environmental awareness, and the link between our actions and that continent. For example, putting it simply, not switching off a single light bulb all night, for instance, has consequences for Antarctica. With the single bulb you left on all night, you can heat, say, 1,000 cups of tea. The energy you wasted comes from somewhere, namely power plants, that release carbon dioxide in the air. This can cause global warming which will melts glaciers in Antarctica and ultimately lead to sea levels rising, causing climate anomalies,” he explained. We saw, first hand, the effects of global warming. There was an ice shelf in Antarctica, four times the size of Bahrain, and we saw it disappear in 35 days via satellite images. But where did it go? It immediately raised sea levels.” Antarctica holds 90 percent of the world's ice and 70 percent of its fresh water, as well as vast coal and oil resources, he added. Turkistani has already started doing his bit to raise environmental awareness. He currently gives a 20-minute presentation in schools in Oman. “We have to encourage young people to go and extend that treaty at the United Nations,” he said. He is enthusiastic about raising awareness among young people in Saudi Arabia. He ended our meeting by showing videos of his trip. One clip showed penguins and seals unflinchingly pass by the ship and its inhabitants. The entire scene, against the backdrop of Antarctica's stark white pristine environment was both awe-inspiring and emotional. “It's untouched. It's beautiful. Look how close they were to us. We have to preserve this.”
