Groasis Waterboxx - The Importance of Growing Native Plants in Difficult Areas

1. Infra Oman, one of the exhibitions
organised by Al Nimr Expo, has been
named the most admired event in
the Middle East at the CMO Asia -
Event Industry Awards held in
Singapore. Salim Omar al Hashmi,
CEO of Al Nimr Expo, accepted the
award and said, “For a young Omani
exhibition company to be recognised
and honoured internationally is a
proven testimony of our team’s
efforts and hard work. I thank HE
Zakariya Hamed al Saadi, Oman’s
Honorary Consul General in
Singapore, for attending the awards
ceremony and making our achieve-
ment more significant.”
Melwin D’cunha, director of Al
Nimr Expo, said, “This is the first
exhibition company not only from
Oman but the Middle East to win
such an accolade. This award follows
the Al Roya Award for the Best
Business Enterprise - Private Sector
in January 2012 held in Oman and
the Oman Web Awards for the Best
Website in the Event Management
Category held in December 2011.”
Jenitha Martin, project manager,
said, “Infra Oman is the ideal plat-
form for all contractors and develop-
ers to meet, thus giving them an
opportunity to present their projects
and achievements and source their
requirements. Infra Oman has grown
significantly since its debut last year.”
Given Oman’s location in one of the
most arid areas in the world, it is no
surprise that water production and
consumption is a concern. One way
to reduce consumption is looking at
the type of plants being planted for
aesthetic purposes and through the
Groasis waterboxx. Clive Winbow,
project manager at Ample Harvest -
that distributes the box - and author
of the book Native Plants of Oman -
An Introduction: With Notes for
Gardeners, hopes to encourage a
new way of growing plants.
The Groasis waterboxx was
developed by Pieter Hoff and went
on to win him the Popular Science
Green Tech Best of What’s New
Innovation of the Year Award in
2010. It works by sheltering
saplings from the sun and provid-
ing water to them through rain and
condensation that is delivered in
small amounts. On the Groasis
waterboxx, Clive said, “Ample
Harvest wants to spread the use of
the box as a means of people plant-
ing native trees in wild areas of the
country, which have either always
been desert or have become desert
through overgrazing and such.”
The main purpose, he said, of this
is to combat desertification. One of
the advantages of the Groasis water-
boxx is that these don’t need any fol-
low-up maintenance, so once they
are planted you can walk away and
be fairly sure the box will do its job.
Aside from being used in wild areas,
Clive hopes the box will be used in
beautification and landscaping
inside and around the capital area so
that people can see how native
plants can be grown with little water
and no irrigation.
Native plants are also shown to be
beneficial for local birds and wildlife,
and Clive added, “What you are bat-
tling against is a prejudice that for-
eign plants grow quicker, are greener
and have bigger flowers. But nobody
likes to say we can’t have a certain
tree because it uses too much water.
All the Gulf countries are spending
too much money on water purifica-
tion and water for irrigation and this
is basically unsustainable.”
Ample Harvest is currently
involved in a project being run by
Dhofar University that looks at how
the box works in a number of
planting areas on the jebel above
Salalah which has been affected
through overgrazing by camels. The
project began in June shortly before
the khareef and Clive will be visiting
the area soon to see how the boxes
are doing and what the next steps
should be. He admits it has been
hard trying to show some people
that this project is for their benefit in
the long run.
The biggest problems when it
comes to planting in Oman is the
salinity and aridity of the soil, plus
the temperature that plants have to
deal with. But from earlier projects, it
looks as if the box deals with these
issues. At the company’s plantation
in Amerat, 70 per cent of the plants
that were planted in March at the
start of the hot season have survived.
“I think it’s a remarkable achieve-
ment given what we have put the
plants through,” he said.
Oman has around 1,200 native
plants, but of those, Clive said that
the trees are the most important as
once they are established, other
plants can grow under them. On the
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GOING
NATIVEClive Winbow talks about the importance of growing
native plants in difficult areas
Emma Abdulaal
theweek@apexmedia.co.om
WRONG IMPRESSION
What you are battling against is a prejudice that foreign plants grow
quicker, are greener and have bigger flowers - Clive Winbow
BankMuscat organised a work-
shop on ATM fraud prevention
addressed by Douglas Russell,
expert in ATM fraud and secur-
ity risk management, recently.
The workshop held at the bank’s
head office was attended by the
head of economic crime, Royal
Oman Police, senior officials
representing various banks in
Oman and frontline staff dealing
AL NIMR EXPO WINS
AWARD FOR INFRA OMAN
BANKMUSCAT
HOSTS WORKSHOP
ON ATM FRAUD
PREVENTION

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future, Clive said, “We hope to start
new projects and I am very hopeful
about introducing it to some of the
high dunes in the Empty Quarter,
which we would have to do using a
different type of tree.
“The type of trees we can grow
there would be very different to what
we can grow in say the coastal area
or in the mountains. I am very exci-
ted about this Dhofar project,
because Dhofar is somewhere with
exceptional flora that is having a bad
time and it is man’s fault.”
Omantel organises workshop on IT security
Omantel organised a workshop on
information security at its head
office last week. A number of infor-
mation security professionals from
the sultanate and other countries
participated in the workshop, a
press release said. The workshop
was part of Omantel’s plans to
enrich the ICT sector and update
professionals on the latest develop-
ments in this important field.
It is also one of the important
programmes in the agenda of the
company’s Oman Telecommu-
nication Institute, which will be
officially launched this month.
The workshop included a num-
ber of important papers by
renowned speakers. Dr Badr al
Manthri of ITA presented a working
paper on cloud computing, the
use of computing resources that are
delivered as a service over a net-
work. Berry Luis, CEO of Surprise, a
specialised company in the field of
information security, training and
consultancy with over 40 years
experience in the field of comput-
ers, presented a paper on ISO27002
in Mobile Phones Technologies
Audit. The second session included
a paper by Albert J Marcille, CEO of
Business Automation Consultancy,
on information security manage-
ment, while Berry made a presenta-
tion on protection control.
Manal al Harthi, project lead,
said, “IT security is of a growing
global interest and offering of this
workshop comes in line with the
company’s efforts to keep pace with
the recent development in the ICT
field. We are thrilled that we have
been able to attract global and local
professionals to speak here.”
with operations, ATM management,
card operations, security and audit,
a press release said.
The workshop provided an
overview of the primary attack
methods that criminals deploy
against ATM terminals and systems.
The workshop’s objective was to
obtain a strategic overview and to
recognise the most common cate-
gories of criminal devices employed
in ATM fraud. Discussions covered
various ATM fraud and security
threats, financial risk to the ATM
channel, reputational and conse-
quential challenges.
Waleed al Hashar, group general
manager - corporate services, said,
“BankMuscat is proud to host this
workshop aimed at addressing cyber
crimes and ATM fraud which have
assumed global ramifications
involving financial and reputational
risks to banking and financial insti-
tutions. Therefore, it is important for
all of us in the banking and financial
sector to contribute and supplement
government efforts to tackle finan-
cial crimes. The subject assumes
great importance, so the workshop
was organised by the bank to facili-
tate exchange of experience and
information on cyber crimes and
ATM fraud.” Douglas is renowned
for global experience in creating
and implementing