DOHA: Citizens are complaining that the sight of the Corniche with its dry and yellowish grass is distorting Qatar’s aesthetic image and threatening tourism promotion efforts.
They say the Corniche should be bright and vibrant with green grass, especially at this time when the summer is ending.
Local Arabic daily Al Raya reported that several citizens are posting on social media images of scorched and yellow grass on the Corniche.
They asked the Ministry of Municipality and Urban Planning to beautify the Corniche and plant more date trees as their number has declined.
Abdul Hamid Al Emadi, a citizen quoted by the daily, said the sight of the Corniche is very depressing for any citizen who loves his country and is not in any way comparable to corniches in the neighbouring GCC countries.
“The Corniche here presents an image of overgrown grass burnt to yellow and this is not good for the tourism industry or families who wish to take a walk or a drive around the area.”
He said it was important that civic authorities gave the Corniche priority to transform it to reflect the modern Qatar.
He said the Corniche is a main link between Doha and most financial districts and there are many hotels along the way and attracts most tourists and visitors.
Mohammed Al Khouri, Director, Public Parks at the ministry, denied that there was any damaged or dry grass on the Corniche or on the central island.
He said the central island and all other green parts on the Corniche are regularly maintained.
He said in the coming month they would conduct the regular annual re-greening of the grass through watering and remove dry grass that is always done after the hot summer months so that the grass is again beautiful.
He said the process would take about 10 days and the whole Corniche would return to its natural aesthetics.
As for the damage to palm trees on the Corniche, Al Khouri said there were no palm trees infected with any diseases as they had a palm tree care unit that takes good care of the trees.
He said they also planned to plant 350 palm trees, especially in areas where there have been re-developments like around the Sheraton Roundabout and they would also replace damaged palm trees.
He said they had planted 2.5m permanent plants and seasonal flowers at different centres and the airport and also distributed 1.5m of these plants to municipalities to beautify areas across Qatar.
The Peninsula
