Jeddah, Apr 25(Arab News): The Saudi Environmental Society hosted an event to celebrate Earth Day 2011 in Jeddah Hilton on Saturday which was attended by about 1,000 young volunteers and environmental experts. It was held to launch four new environmental projects aiming to spread awareness.

The event was attended by Prince Turki bin Nasser bin Abdul Aziz, general president of Meteorology and Environment Protection and head of the Executive Bureau of the Council of Arab Ministers in Charge of Environment Affairs; and Prince Sultan bin Salman, chairman of the Saudi Commission for Tourism and Antiquities.

“We have to correct the environmental mistakes that might badly influence planet Earth,” said Prince Turki in his speech. “The world has acknowledged the value of our planet and its natural ability to protect us and the generations following ... The whole world is celebrating Earth Day to spread awareness about the importance of taking care of it for a better and a healthy future,” he said. There is a complementary connection between tourism and the environment, according to Prince Sultan. “We have a system of programs and projects to directly help and protect the environment. We have already have a national strategy toward developing the tourism areas by the Red Sea.”

The ceremony showed two local documentaries — “Jeddah’s Environment” and “Earth” made by local artists.

“We want to introduce people to our new projects and ask them to get involved and help us save our environment,” said the organization's Deputy Executive Director Majda Abu Ras.

Eco Shields are a group of volunteers who just launched their cleaning campaign.

“We think that Earth Day was the perfect event to launch our cleaning-Jeddah campaign to introduce ourselves to the public for the first time,” said Karam Khashoggi, Eco Shield leader. “Our campaign is based on voluntary work to literally clean Jeddah’s streets, one after the other,” he added.