H E Dr Hamad bin Abdulaziz Al Kawari (second left), with other officials during the Qatar Environmental Day 2018 celebrations at the Education City yesterday.
DOHA: Minister of State, H E Dr Hamad bin Abdulaziz Al Kawari, planted a Samar tree (Acacia) to mark Qatar Environmental Day 2018 at Qatar Foundation yesterday.
More than 35 Samar trees were planted at Education City under “Ghars” 2018 planting campaign yesterday.
The campaign was launched by the Quranic Botanic Garden (QBG), which aims to raise environmental awareness in Qatar and plant 2022 trees in Qatar by the 2022 FIFA World Cup.
“The campaign is one of the most important initiatives carrying cultural, environmental, educational and Islamic message,” said the Minister.
“I am very happy today to be given the opportunity of tree plantation. I want to see the tree I planted to be grown fully and to be beneath the shade of this tree one day,” said Al Kawari, speaking with media persons at the ceremony.
He said that it is part of ongoing efforts of Qatar to create environmental culture across the country in a bid to protect the environment for health causes.
“Quranic Botanic Garden is celebrating the Qatar Environment Day, by organising two types of events; planting trees and environmental research contest (ERC),” said Ahmed El Desoukey El Gharib, Assistant Researcher at QBG, told The Peninsula.
He said that the ERC Awards Ceremony of the Environmental Research contest 2017-2018 was held at HBKU Student Center yesterday.
The contest was organised by QBG in collaboration with the Ministry of Education and Higher Education and the Qatar National Research Fund. The contest aims to provide innovative and practical solutions to environmental challenges through scientific research.
“The environmental research contest was participated by 20 preparatory and secondary schools,” said El Gharib.
He said that this year the participants conducted research on 33 points including agriculture, wild plant, medicinal plants, irrigation system, new design of honey beehives among others.
This year competition have three winners. First winner for designing new honey beehives to protect the bees from dying was Ali Bin Jassim Bin Mohammed Al Thani Independent Secondary School, second winner was Rufaida Preparatory School for Girls for conducting research on the Moringa Tree Leaves as natural additive for chicken.
The researchers noticed that chicken that grew by eating this leave are three times bigger than those raised without it, said El Gharib.
He said that third winner is Abu Bakr Al Siddiq of Independent Preparatory School for Boys for conducting study on chemical in the soil and used certain kind of a fungi to separate this chemical to make soil chemical free that is very unique point of study.
The second initiative of QBG on Environmental Day is Ghars 2018 planting campaign. It is green message from the Garden to the world, said El Gharib.
He said that QBG is planting trees to increase the number inside Qatar Foundation and rest of the country.
QBG invited the schools to celebrate Qatar National Day by planting trees. “We choose this year one tree - Samar it is a natural desert tree to be planted as part of landscape and heritage and culture in the education city. Today we have planted over 35 trees here at education city and we have distributed over 500 saplings to the students to be planted in the school,” he said.
