Our Working Wonders of the UAE series takes you to some of the country's most recognisable destinations to uncover the daily duties of the talented employees working there
Biologist Barbara Lang-Lenton has dedicated her life to rescuing injured turtles along the UAE’s shores.
She launched the Dubai Turtle Rehabilitation Project in 2004, rejoining the team in 2021 to lead the project.
To date, the programme has rescued and released 2,109 hawksbill, green, loggerhead and olive ridley turtles, some of which were later tracked as far as India and Thailand.
Ms Lang-Lenton, 46, originally from Spain, now spearheads biodiversity initiatives across the region and spends her weekends leading rescue missions with her three children in tow.
Here, she invites The National for a day at the lagoons to meet permanent residents Humpty and Dumpty and reveals how her team helps put other injured turtles back together again.
What does your job involve?
If someone goes to the beach or out at sea and finds a stranded or injured turtle, they can contact us through 800TURTLE and then we go and collect them and bring them back to Burj Al Arab’s aquarium facilities. The resort is where the initial assessments are carried out before animals are transferred to Jumeirah Al Naseem's lagoons next door.
We have very large quarantine areas and that's where we do the clinical part of the project.
More than 60 per cent are young hawksbills that are born in this part of the Gulf and get sick in the winter months – they are quite easy to treat.
We also get a lot of cases where turtles get tangled in fishing gear or discarded waste. They may also have developed intestine impaction from eating plastics.
Less frequently we get boat strikes, where turtles are basically cracked open from big impact or are cut with a propeller.
We keep the turtles with us for as long as they need. Once they are swimming on their own and can feed by themselves, they get moved to the turtle rehabilitation lagoons in Jumeirah Al Naseem.
Once in the lagoons, the turtles continue to build up their strength and fitness until the weather conditions are favourable for release back into the ocean.
We have two permanent residents, Humpty and Dumpty, whose shells are too badly damaged to survive in the wild, but we aim to get all of our turtles back into the ocean where they belong.
What are some of the most exciting aspects?
I do ecology monitoring around Burj Al Arab and other hotels, so I get to go diving in the ocean and interact with a lot of people and kids.
I love to see people sharing my passion for the first time. Witnessing that first reaction is precious and it’s really rewarding on a personal level.
I see a bright future for more projects to come, and we just want to expand on the work that we initiated almost 20 years ago.
What are the most challenging parts?
It's getting a lot easier now that sustainability is increasingly at the forefront of everyone's minds but pollution in the ocean is very frustrating.
Tests find most turtles have plastics in their digestive system, regardless of any other injuries.
On a more personal level, I have three children and it’s a lot of work in the winter season when we go around the country and rescue a lot of turtles.
They are five, eight and 11 and have become little turtle rangers with me.
What is the most rewarding part of your job?
Of course, releasing the turtles is really rewarding but I do get emotional when I say goodbye to the turtles that have been with us a while.
We have tracked 77 of our turtles since we started the project and it’s amazing to see where they go in the world once they leave us.
We had an olive ridley turtle named Oli who was very sensitive to changes in the water temperature and her health was up and down throughout the time she was with us.
She was very nervous but she travelled all the way to India to some of the breeding sites before we lost signal. We assume she was going there to nest, which was a very nice thought.
We also had a huge male green turtle that travelled around nesting sites in Oman, meeting with a lot of the females for three months or so until we lost signal.
These very successful stories are great because we see these animals that were about to die travelling back to their place of birth, potentially to procreate and continue with life.
We had one turtle going all the way to Thailand, and it’s rewarding to know that the work we do has an impact on the wider turtle population.
COMPANY%20PROFILE
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MATCH INFO
Euro 2020 qualifier
Croatia v Hungary, Thursday, 10.45pm, UAE
TV: Match on BeIN Sports
What is tokenisation?
Tokenisation refers to the issuance of a blockchain token, which represents a virtually tradable real, tangible asset. A tokenised asset is easily transferable, offers good liquidity, returns and is easily traded on the secondary markets.
Company%20profile
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AIR
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Company: Instabug
Founded: 2013
Based: Egypt, Cairo
Sector: IT
Employees: 100
Stage: Series A
Investors: Flat6Labs, Accel, Y Combinator and angel investors
Manchester United v Club America
When: Thursday, 9pm Arizona time (Friday UAE, 8am)
MATCH INFO
Juventus 1 (Dybala 45')
Lazio 3 (Alberto 16', Lulic 73', Cataldi 90 4')
Red card: Rodrigo Bentancur (Juventus)
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More coverage from the Future Forum
Lexus LX700h specs
Engine: 3.4-litre twin-turbo V6 plus supplementary electric motor
Power: 464hp at 5,200rpm
Torque: 790Nm from 2,000-3,600rpm
Transmission: 10-speed auto
Fuel consumption: 11.7L/100km
On sale: Now
Price: From Dh590,000
MATCH INFO
Burnley 1 (Brady 89')
Manchester City 4 (Jesus 24', 50', Rodri 68', Mahrez 87')
Confirmed%20bouts%20(more%20to%20be%20added)
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The specS: 2018 Toyota Camry
Price: base / as tested: Dh91,000 / Dh114,000
Engine: 3.5-litre V6
Gearbox: Eight-speed automatic
Power: 298hp @ 6,600rpm
Torque: 356Nm @ 4,700rpm
Fuel economy, combined: 7.0L / 100km
Prop idols
Girls full-contact rugby may be in its infancy in the Middle East, but there are already a number of role models for players to look up to.
Sophie Shams (Dubai Exiles mini, England sevens international)
An Emirati student who is blazing a trail in rugby. She first learnt the game at Dubai Exiles and captained her JESS Primary school team. After going to study geophysics at university in the UK, she scored a sensational try in a cup final at Twickenham. She has played for England sevens, and is now contracted to top Premiership club Saracens.
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Seren Gough-Walters (Sharjah Wanderers mini, Wales rugby league international)
Few players anywhere will have taken a more circuitous route to playing rugby on Sky Sports. Gough-Walters was born in Al Wasl Hospital in Dubai, raised in Sharjah, did not take up rugby seriously till she was 15, has a master’s in global governance and ethics, and once worked as an immigration officer at the British Embassy in Abu Dhabi. In the summer of 2021 she played for Wales against England in rugby league, in a match that was broadcast live on TV.
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Erin King (Dubai Hurricanes mini, Ireland sevens international)
Aged five, Australia-born King went to Dubai Hurricanes training at The Sevens with her brothers. She immediately struck up a deep affection for rugby. She returned to the city at the end of last year to play at the Dubai Rugby Sevens in the colours of Ireland in the Women’s World Series tournament on Pitch 1.
History's medical milestones
1799 - First small pox vaccine administered
1846 - First public demonstration of anaesthesia in surgery
1861 - Louis Pasteur published his germ theory which proved that bacteria caused diseases
1895 - Discovery of x-rays
1923 - Heart valve surgery performed successfully for first time
1928 - Alexander Fleming discovers penicillin
1953 - Structure of DNA discovered
1952 - First organ transplant - a kidney - takes place
1954 - Clinical trials of birth control pill
1979 - MRI, or magnetic resonance imaging, scanned used to diagnose illness and injury.
1998 - The first adult live-donor liver transplant is carried out
RESULT
Bayer Leverkusen 2 Bayern Munich 4
Leverkusen: Alario (9'), Wirtz (89')
Bayern: Coman (27'), Goretzka (42'), Gnabry (45'), Lewandowski (66')
SPECS
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The specs: 2018 GMC Terrain
Price, base / as tested: Dh94,600 / Dh159,700
Engine: 2.0-litre turbocharged four-cylinder
Power: 252hp @ 5,500rpm
Torque: 353Nm @ 2,500rpm
Transmission: Nine-speed automatic
Fuel consumption, combined: 7.4L / 100km
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
Red flags
- Promises of high, fixed or 'guaranteed' returns.
- Unregulated structured products or complex investments often used to bypass traditional safeguards.
- Lack of clear information, vague language, no access to audited financials.
- Overseas companies targeting investors in other jurisdictions - this can make legal recovery difficult.
- Hard-selling tactics - creating urgency, offering 'exclusive' deals.
Courtesy: Carol Glynn, founder of Conscious Finance Coaching
THE%20HOLDOVERS
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Avatar: Fire and Ash
Director: James Cameron
Starring: Sam Worthington, Sigourney Weaver, Zoe Saldana
Rating: 4.5/5
David Haye record
Total fights: 32
Wins: 28
Wins by KO: 26
Losses: 4
The Bio
Favourite place in UAE: Al Rams pearling village
What one book should everyone read: Any book written before electricity was invented. When a writer willingly worked under candlelight, you know he/she had a real passion for their craft
Your favourite type of pearl: All of them. No pearl looks the same and each carries its own unique characteristics, like humans
Best time to swim in the sea: When there is enough light to see beneath the surface
The Uefa Awards winners
Uefa Men's Player of the Year: Virgil van Dijk (Liverpool)
Uefa Women's Player of the Year: Lucy Bronze (Lyon)
Best players of the 2018/19 Uefa Champions League
Goalkeeper: Alisson (Liverpool)
Defender: Virgil van Dijk (Liverpool)
Midfielder: Frenkie de Jong (Ajax)
Forward: Lionel Messi (Barcelona)
Uefa President's Award: Eric Cantona
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Biog
Mr Kandhari is legally authorised to conduct marriages in the gurdwara
He has officiated weddings of Sikhs and people of different faiths from Malaysia, Sri Lanka, Russia, the US and Canada
Father of two sons, grandfather of six
Plays golf once a week
Enjoys trying new holiday destinations with his wife and family
Walks for an hour every morning
Completed a Bachelor of Commerce degree in Loyola College, Chennai, India
2019 is a milestone because he completes 50 years in business
The biog
Job: Fitness entrepreneur, body-builder and trainer
Favourite superhero: Batman
Favourite quote: We must become the change we want to see, by Mahatma Gandhi.
Favourite car: Lamborghini
Neymar's bio
Total club appearances 411
Total goals scored 241
Appearances for Barca 186
Goals scored for Barca 105
'The Woman in the House Across the Street from the Girl in the Window'
Director:Michael Lehmann
Stars:Kristen Bell
Rating: 1/5
Results
2.30pm: Dubai Creek Tower – Handicap (PA) Dh40,000 (Dirt) 1,200m; Winner: Marmara Xm, Gary Sanchez (jockey), Abdelkhir Adam (trainer)
3pm: Al Yasmeen – Maiden (PA) Dh40,000 (D) 1,700m; Winner: AS Hajez, Jesus Rosales, Khalifa Al Neyadi
3.30pm: Al Ferdous – Maiden (PA) Dh40,000 (D) 1,700m; Winner: Soukainah, Sebastien Martino, Jean-Claude Pecout
4pm: The Crown Prince Of Sharjah – Prestige (PA) Dh200,000 (D) 1,200m; Winner: AF Thayer, Ray Dawson, Ernst Oertel
4.30pm: Sheikh Ahmed bin Rashid Al Maktoum Cup – Handicap (TB) Dh200,000 (D) 2,000m; Winner: George Villiers, Antonio Fresu, Bhupat Seemar
5pm: Palma Spring – Handicap (PA) Dh40,000 (D) 2,000m; Winner: Es Abu Mousa, Antonio Fresu, Abubakar Daud
Sour%20Grapes
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The%20specs%20
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