Extreme Sports Series Promotes Sustainability on the Red Sea

CARLOS DUARTE Distinguished Professor of Marine Science and Tarek Ahmed Juffali Research Chair in Red Sea Ecology

THE POTENTIAL OF EXTREME E TO ELICIT SOLUTION-DRIVEN ACTION AT THE BIODIVERSITYCLIMATE INTERFACE IS IMMENSE, BY ENGAGING AUDIENCES THROUGH SPORTS AND IMAGINING A SHARED VISION FOR A SUSTAINABLE PLANET.

A global off-road electric vehicle racing series kicks off in the Kingdom

Distinguished Professor of Marine Science Carlos Duarte has joined an exclusive advisory committee of scientists for Extreme E, a series of off-road races in extreme settings using electric vehicles. He joins a panel of experts from the UK’s University of Oxford and University of Cambridge in advising this sustainability-focused series, promoting both the ecological health of the Red Sea and the conservation of vulnerable turtle populations along its coast.

Extreme E was created in 2019 as a global, gender-balanced off-road racing series by Alejandro Agag, a Spanish politician and racing executive, and Gil de Ferran, a former champion driver. By hosting off-road electric sport-utility vehicle races in an array of environments at risk of negative climate change impacts, Extreme E seeks to boost awareness of environmental sustainability challenges across the planet while supporting ongoing programs to effect lasting change. The first race – the Desert X Prix – was held in Saudi Arabia in April 2021; the events move from there to other climate-endangered settings in Senegal, Greenland and Brazil.

Extreme E and Professor Duarte, with support from Professor Mani Sarathy and Professor Bill Roberts at the Clean Combustion Research Center, are working with local conservation group Ba’a Foundation to ensure a sustainable future for green sea and hawksbill turtles, whose ancestral home on the Ras Baridi stretch of coastline is being threatened by predators, pollution and climate change. After roaming the ocean for some 30 years, the turtles return to their birthplace to lay eggs. Due to damage caused by humans and climate change-related rises in sea levels and erosion, however, the already endangered turtles increasingly have to navigate harsh – and often unsurvivable – terrain. In 2019 the eggs experienced a 90% mortality rate due to nest flooding.

The collaborative conservation program seeks to protect turtle eggs and shells from illegal trade, keep plastic debris away from their natural habitats, mitigate against rising sea levels that can erode or flood nesting sites, and address rising sand temperatures, which threaten to create imbalances in turtle populations as warmer sand has been shown to lead to the birth of more female turtles.

EXTREME E

“This series is of course about thrill racing, but we are also shining a spotlight on the climate and environmental crises that are happening all over the world and trying to make a lasting difference.”