I just arrived back in Oman, until 5 October. As I’m using the first two days to sort out some logistic and administrative matters in the capital, I had an epiphany: it’s a fast changing world we’re living in. It’s been two years since my last field work in Oman, and many things are so different from what I last remember. First, there’s the heat. 41 degrees in the shade, it requires more accimatisation than I can remember. Second, there’s the road. So much construction is going on within the densely populated capital area that I’m desoriented. Not that it will bring any relief to traffic-jammed Muscat. With no regularly scheduled public mass transportation and a heat making it impossible to go by bike, the roads are blocked with cars only carrying the driver. And third, administration. Although we always consciously collaborated with te ministry of Environment, al lot of scientific robbing has been going on in the past: researchers coming in anonymously, taking loads of samples home, and never informing local authorities about the results. For biogeographic and ecological research, working in such away doesn’t really harm the country’s economy, other than depriving the authororities from valuable figures on the state of the biodiversity (it’s mostly intellectual deprivation, rather than economic robbery – although even that is despicable!). What is worse: biochemical screaning is in fact economic robbery. Some researches enter a country and take biological samples of endemic organisms (organisms only occurring in that country or region) without informing the government. In their home lab, they screen the specimens for pharmaceutically active compounds, and afterwards they can harvest more specimens or chemically copy-cat the compounds, thus making money without having to pay for the resources. With a government hence terrified for the lack of reports on biochemical expeditions, there are a lot of forms to be completed and reports to be handed over in order to obtain permission to take biological samples. For instance, an official collaboration between the home university or institution and an Omani university or research institution is needed to obtain the permit. Even with such a permission at hand, a seperate diving and snorkeling permit is necessary. Even if you’re not taking samples, you do not have permission to venture out snorkeling or diving without being part of an official dive club throughout the country in Oman. It’s definitely for the better, but it is challenging to go through the whole process, especially as the regulations came only recently in place and a lot of functionaries still didn’t know the exact stipulations of the new law…
Anyway, I’m looking forward to start working! I need to supervise my Master students in their field work, and the dad of one of them is working with Dredging International in Musandam. It’s the first time I’ll get there, so that’ll be very exciting, both for the diving part as well as visiting a coastal quarry. Some of these construction sites can be very impressive… And what’s more, we’re planning to go back to the beautiful island of Masirah, not only to perform the fieldwork for the satellite image acquisition, but also to acquire some aerial pictures on our own, with kite aerial photography. Seems every bit as challenging and fun to me, and although I probably won’t have time to visit internet cafes to update you while out here in Oman, I’ll definitely post the outcome!
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