Do you want to know why I love Bizerta Scuba Diving ?
- mahouae875
- Oct 5, 2020
- 4 min read
Today I will be focusing on Bizerta Scuba Diving activities. So welcome!
Bizerta Scuba diving is a scuba diving activities club with an environmental orientation. This club is a group of people with a diverse background, who share a common appreciation for the environment. Through their local actions, they encourage progress and growth towards a globally sustainable future.
Divers at Bizerta Scuba diving club have the opportunity to dive and experience the incredible beauty of the underwater world. However, often they come face to face with the marine debris and litter that litters our planet’s ecosystems.
Fortunately, as divers, they also can make a difference. Many of their activities occur during weekends, school breaks, and especially during summertime. Community service events like river cleanups, trail work weekends, and environmental education activities are great opportunities for direct action.
The group aims to improve the living environment in the city of Bizerte through awareness-raising projects, voluntary social media activities, street entertainment, sidewalks, shows, street painting, etc. They believe in a project of a radiant civil society, brimming with the spirit of initiative and goodwill to go forward and improve the living environment in the city. They also aim for organizing reforestation, cleaning, selective sorting, and recycling actions to establish a conscious green solidarity movement.
I will start by introducing Ichkeul National Park and Lake and the issues related to it.
Ichkeul National Park and Lake
Ichkeul National Park and Lake are located in the north of Tunisia and 25 km southwest of Bizerte. In 1891, Jebel Ichkeul (Mount Ichkeul) was acquired by the state government. UNESCO added the park to the list of World Heritage Sites in 1980. However, the park has been on the group's list of World Heritage in Danger between 1996 and 2006. The lake and wetlands of Ichkeul are an important stopping-over point for hundreds of thousands of migrating birds each year such as ducks, geese, storks, and pink flamingoes.
Among these birds, the presence of three species of worldwide interest for their protection: the white-headed duck (Oxyura leucocephala), the ferruginous duck (Aythya nyroca), and the marbled duck (Marmaronetta angustirostris). With such a diversity of habitats, the property possesses very rich and diversified fauna and flora with more than 200 animal species and more than 500 plant species. According to the UNESCO World Heritage Centre; “The ecological functioning of the lake-marsh system is closely controlled by the flow of fresh water from upstream and exchanges with the seawater downstream, both subject to the strong natural intra- and inter-annual variability characteristic of Mediterranean climates. The water management of the lake-marsh system is therefore a primordial element in the management of the property.” (UNESCO World Heritage Centre, n.d.)
Dam construction on the lake has generated critical changes to the ecological balance of the lake and wetlands. The lake was damaged since the obstructing of freshwater supplies that turned the lake saline. The reedbeds, sedges, and other fresh-water plant species have been substituted by salt-loving plants because dams have sharply reduced the freshwater inflow to the lakes and marshes. These fluctuations have created a severe decline in the migratory bird populations, which depend on the mix of plants that used to exist. Ichkeul National Park and Lake, in 1996, was added to the List of World Heritage in Danger due to the negative impacts of the freshwater on the ecosystem following the construction of the dams. However, in 2006, after an improvement in the condition and reestablishment of the ecosystem are progressing satisfactorily, the Ichkeul National Park was removed from the Danger List (UNESCO World Heritage Centre, n.d.)
The main objectives are to control the impacts of less rainy winters on the ecosystem of Ichkeul National Park, to control impacts on the park with the increased demand for water in Tunisia in general, and specifically to build again the numbers of wintering waterbirds.
A partnership with the University of Sciences of Bizerte (https://www.cies.org/news-media) will be established to implement a program to conjecture the needs of the water and the optimal use of the resources for the conservation of the ecosystems of Ichkeul. Finally, the club will be asking residents leaving nearby if they could support efforts to save the lake and the park by promoting general awareness, as well as keeping rain barrels and planting rain gardens which will soak up water before it becomes runoff.
Oceans and seas are not just important for living organisms who live in water but are also an important part of human life. Oceans are a big component of nature just like a family member. If there is a dispute in a family, the first thing other people do is to try to resolve and mitigate the situation to bring friendship between the people of different opinions. Alike, if oceans are dirty, it’s is the responsibility of human beings to clean it.
Next week I will be focusing on Bizerta Scuba Diving and Cleanup the Vieux Port (old harbor/ port) & Cleanup Ichkeul.
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