Art show sheds light on importance of birds to Kuwaits environment

By Faten Omar

KUWAIT: The General Secretariat of the Supreme Council for Planning and Development (GSSCPD) organized on Wednesday an exhibition entitled 'Feather and Art' in cooperation with the Kuwaiti Awareness Team of Birds. Mohammad Anber, Vice President of the Kuwaiti Awareness Team of Birds, told Kuwait Times that the exhibition was held to raise awareness of the birds through pictures and paintings, adding "We are participating in the exhibition in cooperation with GSSCPD. Today's exhibition is diverse and is the first of its kind to combine pictures of painters and photographers."

He pointed out that his team is the first in the Middle East that combines talking birds' species and birds of prey. "We are an environmental volunteer team," he noted. "We aspire to raise a conscious generation to preserve the environment. We aim to create an educated and aware generation of the importance of endemic and migratory birds in environmental balance and work to make Kuwait and the Gulf States capitals for awareness and environmental culture."

Anber affirmed that the Kuwaiti team is against poaching. "The ecological balance must be preserved. For example, one owl eats between 1,000 to 2,000 mice per year," he said. "If we killed or hunted owls, the number of mice will increase, will start attacking homes and areas and we will get back to the plague era."

"We have been working on community awareness for the past six years, by organizing exhibitions and awareness campaigns in schools and universities and cooperation with government ministries. We visited almost 80 percent of Kuwait schools. The Kuwaiti people became more aware, and we see this through the children in schools. We must build an environmentally conscious generation," he added.

The Kuwaiti Awareness Team of Birds aims to spread environmental awareness, assist governmental agencies and spread the culture of the environment. It also aims to spread the culture of not hunting endemic and migratory birds, raise awareness about how to keep birds, dissemination of public information on endemic and migratory birds, and enrich bird breeders' information in terms of breeding and nutrition.

The two-day exhibition aims to spread awareness about the environment and the importance of birds in the Kuwaiti environment. The exhibition is held in the lobby of GSSCPD premises on the Arabian Gulf Street. It is open on July 27-28, 2022, from 10:00 am to 1:00 pm.