There is a need to create awareness of environment issues to protect the Kingdom's natural resources and wildlife, according to Prince Turki Bin Nasser Bin Abdul Aziz, President of the Presidency of Meteorology and Environment (PME). Prince Turki said the Kingdom is on the right path as it has already set up a special court, in 2001, to deal with environmental cases, including outlining regulations on violations and penalties. Prince Turki said he was encouraged by the increasingly positive attitude shown by the Kingdom's citizens toward environmental issues. Prince Turki made these comments during the inauguration of a show at the Jeddah Corniche on the occasion of the World Earth Day in which more than 20 government agencies took part. Earth Day is held on April 22 every year to highlight concerns over the state of the planet. He said the Kingdom has an extensive system of legislation to protect the environment from pollution. In his lecture, Engineer Zaki Muhammad Ali Farsi, said that the lack of environmental standards was directly responsible for all the environmental shortcomings of Jeddah. He said that despite the fact that all the mega projects in Jeddah were designed and implemented by international companies, all these projects lack proper environmental standards. As an example for these deficiencies, he cited the example of the flood canals in Jeddah. He said these canals were too small to accommodate floods if it rained continuously for five to six hours. This was not the case in big cities in other parts of the world where flood canals are constructed in a way to protect life and property. Citing another example of the environmental shortcomings in Jeddah, he said the western part of the city, where the desalination plants are located, causes great damage to the environment, reflected in the emission of gas and other pollutants. Despite the SR300 million allocation made to handle this problem, the inhabitants living in the area are suffering from air polluted by high carbon dioxide emissions. This is happening at a time when the desalination plants in the Eastern Province and Riyadh use non-pollutant gas to generate power. The Jeddah plant has been using a heavy fuel for years which causes this environmental pollution, he said. – Okaz/SG – Saleh Shabraq and Fatima Aal Amr also contributed to the report. __
