Saudi Wildlife is the official sponsor of Earth Hour 2010 in the Kingdom, which will be held from 8.30 P.M. to 9.30 P.M. Saturday, and there is growing interest in the event from different sections of Saudi society, according to Dr. Awadh Al-Juhany, Dean of the Science College, King Saud University and Head of Saudi Wildlife. He said that Saudi Wildlife, the official representative of the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) in Saudi Arabia, is in negotiations with iconic landmarks in the Kingdom to get them to pledge their participation in this year's Earth Hour. “This (Earth Hour) is a new thing in the Kingdom. This year, we only aim at telling people and getting them together to take actions for our environment and planet,” said Al-Juhany. On the question of whether an estimate of the amount of electricity saved during that one hour would be made known, Al-Juhany said: “Saving electricity in this hour may not be the main goal, and we could contact the Electricity Ministry in this regard. The main goal of Earth Hour is to raise the awareness of the community about their impact on the environment”. He said that there would not be any power cuts, adding that street lights would not be turned off either. “We are trying to convince people and a number of establishments. We are asking them to at least dim their building lights if not switching them off,” said Al-Juhany. “It is a volunteering activity,” he added. He said because they started late “we had less than two weeks in hand and no time to contact any key ministries”. “We arranged with the UAE and Australia offices of the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) – the global Earth Hour organizer – to officially sponsor Earth Hour in Saudi Arabia. There are many people here who are willing to participate and are concerned about conserving energy and reducing emissions in the environment,” said Dr. Al-Juhany. Abdullah Bin Sabbar from the Saudi Wildlife team said the major Earth Hour participants as of Tuesday include: Al-Baik, Alwan Company, King Saud University in Riyadh, King Fahd University in Dammam, Tabuk University and Jubail School. This year, the Earth Hour organizers are expecting more than a billion people around the world to take part in the campaign, a global initiative in which businesses, governments, communities and individuals are asked to turn off their lights for an hour in an effort to take action on climate change. Earth Hour went global just a year after its initiation in 2007 in Sydney, Australia.
