Latest news with #SHAMS
Arab News
11-07-2025
- Science
- Arab News
‘Adopt a Coral' community restoration initiative unveiled
RIYADH: A new environmental initiative aimed at directly involving local communities in coral reef rehabilitation will be launched on Saturday. The innovative 'Adopt a Coral' scheme, by the General Organization for the Conservation of Coral Reefs and Turtles in the Red Sea (SHAMS), will also promote awareness of marine ecosystem preservation. The project represents a significant step in Saudi Arabia's marine conservation efforts, supporting Vision 2030 sustainability goals and the Saudi Green Initiative's mission to prevent ecosystem decline and protect biodiversity. SHAMS has developed the program using proven scientific methods for identifying damaged reef areas and implementing cutting-edge rehabilitation techniques. The organization's track record includes successful long-term monitoring systems that measure ecosystem recovery over extended periods. The initiative offers a range of opportunities for those taking part, from hands-on coral seedling planting to educational workshops addressing major reef threats, including climate change and marine pollution. It particularly targets Saudi Arabia's diving community as active contributors to reef monitoring and public education efforts. Central to the program is a symbolic adoption concept, where participants take responsibility for specific coral sections. Initial implementation will focus on selected Red Sea coastal sites, with gradual expansion planned to maximize both long-term environmental impact and sustainable community involvement. As environmental pressures mount, 'Adopt a Coral' initiative offers a practical model for community-based conservation of the fragile underwater habitats and reflects SHAMS's broader mission to transform environmental protection into tangible community action.
Asharq Al-Awsat
10-07-2025
- General
- Asharq Al-Awsat
SHAMS Engages Community with New Coral Initiative for Red Sea Protection
The General Organization for the Conservation of Coral Reefs and Turtles in the Red Sea (SHAMS) is set to launch a new environmental initiative titled 'Adopt a Coral' this Saturday. The initiative aims to involve community members in the restoration of coral reefs and raise awareness of the importance of their sustainability as part of national efforts to protect the Kingdom's marine environment. This initiative aligns with SHAMS' goals of enhancing community partnership and increasing public involvement in marine conservation. It also supports Saudi Vision 2030's sustainability objectives and complements national programs such as the Saudi Green Initiative, which aims to reduce ecosystem degradation and preserve biodiversity, SPA reported. SHAMS emphasized that the initiative is the result of years of field experience in coral reef restoration. The organization has demonstrated its capabilities in accurately identifying degraded reef areas using scientific indicators, developing innovative restoration techniques, and implementing long-term monitoring programs to assess ecological recovery. The 'Adopt a Coral' initiative offers various opportunities for public participation, including hands-on involvement in coral planting following specialized field training, attending awareness workshops and events that highlight threats to coral reefs such as climate change and marine pollution. These opportunities empower the diving community to engage in reef monitoring and environmental advocacy, and foster a shared sense of responsibility by enabling individuals and groups to 'adopt' coral as a symbol of ongoing environmental commitment. The first phase of the initiative will be carried out at a designated coral reef site along the Red Sea coast, with participation from volunteers, divers, and environmental enthusiasts. SHAMS plans to expand the initiative in future phases to ensure long-term ecological impact and sustainable community engagement. Coral reefs in the Red Sea are a vital artery for marine ecosystems, a rich source of biodiversity, and a key driver of economic and eco-tourism activity. In response to growing environmental challenges, the initiative emerges as a forward-thinking model of community engagement in the restoration of sensitive ecosystems. Through this program, SHAMS seeks to redefine environmental protection by directly connecting the public with the stewardship of this valuable natural resource.
Qatar Tribune
26-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Qatar Tribune
NU-Q, ACSS launch new scholarly association for Arab Media Studies
Tribune News Network Doha The Institute for Advanced Study in the Global South at Northwestern University in Qatar (IAS NU-Q) and the Arab Council for the Social Sciences (ACSS) have announced the launch of the Society for Humanistic Arab Media Studies (SHAMS), a pioneering trilingual scholarly association dedicated to advancing rigorous, multidisciplinary, and humanistic research on Arab media in their social, cultural, and political-economic contexts. The new joint initiative, supported in part by Carnegie Corporation of New York, is part of Northwestern Qatar's Arab Information and Media Studies (AIMS) project and builds on the Institute's long-standing partnership with ACSS. It aims to strengthen humanistic research and knowledge production in the Arab region and foster rigorous, interdisciplinary research that enriches the intellectual landscape of Arab media studies by drawing on a wide range of disciplines. This includes literature, history, and philosophy, media studies, digital humanities, and postcolonial theory. 'Working with ACSS has shown us just how powerful trilingualism can be in creating connected, overlapping scholarly publics,' said Marwan M Kraidy, dean and CEO of Northwestern Qatar. 'With SHAMS, we are building on that idea; not just to promote research on Arab media, but to bring together a multilingual network of scholars who have deep expertise about the region. What excites me most is that SHAMS will be a space led by scholars, grounded in the Arab world, and committed to critical thinking from the South about their region. It's exactly the kind of initiative we envisioned when we launched the AIMS project—and I can't wait to see how it grows.' The initiative was launched at the ACSS' seventh conference in Beirut, where the Institute led a scholarly discussion under the conference theme 'Devastation, Imaginaries and Knowledge: Regional Junctures and Global Repercussions'. Faculty and scholars from across the Northwestern University in Qatar community showcased a wide range of scholarly works. This includes an analysis of televised representations of youth in Guinea by Clovis Bergère, director of IAS NU-Q , and three film screenings curated by associate professor Rana Kazkaz and IAS NU-QGlobal Postdoctoral Scholar Chafic Najem. As part of the conference programme, Dean Kraidy chaired a panel on Arab digitalities,exploring how digital technologies are shaping everyday life across the Arab region. The panel brought together research on the intersections of media, politics, and lived experience. Panellists included Najem, who presented 'Buying Time: Regimes of Temporal Capital and the Telecommunication Vortex of Lebanon', Leila Tayeb, assistant professor in residence at Northwestern Qatar, who discussed 'Arab Drones: Being (Targeted) and Listening', and Nermin El Sherif, assistant professor in residence at Utrecht University, who examined 'Controlling 'Live': Internet Trends, Media Panics, and the Social Reproduction of a Silent Nation'. In another session, scholars explored how the 'digital' can be conceptualised and studied within an InterAsia framework. Panellists included Harsha Man Maharjan, a Global Postdoctoral Scholar at IAS NU-Q, who proposed a transregional approach to national ID systems in his presentation, 'An InterAsian Digitalities Framework: A Proposal for National Digital Identification Studies'; Ada Petiwala, assistant professor of Media Studies at the American University of Beirut, who examined how digital narratives of tolerance obscure structural violence in 'India-UAE-Israel: Tolerance/Violence in the New Middle East Order'; and Mariam Karim, also a Global Postdoctoral Scholar at IAS NU-Q, who offered a feminist intervention into digital archival practices in her talk, 'Towards a Feminist Definition of 'InterAsian Digitalities': Nazrah Arabyya'.
