SCOTT PETERSON „LIAISON FOR TIME
PRINCESS BASMA, HERO OF THE WEEK
OCTOBER 26, 1998
A Royal Guardian For Jordan's Reefs
BY LISA BEYER AQABA
Among the advice a newly certified scuba diver may hear is this:
don't dive the Red Sea first, unless you want to be disappointed
with every other site. For diversity of coral life per square
foot, no other place matches it. Preserving that supremacy, at
least in the tiny chink of the sea that belongs to her native
Jordan, is the goal of Princess Basma Bint Ali, a cousin of King
Hussein's. Princess Basma, 28, is president of the Jordan Royal
Ecological Diving Society, which works to protect the delicate
undersea world in the Gulf of Aqaba off Jordan's 16 miles of
southern coast.
She came to her passion through aversion. "I used to be petrified
of the sea," she confides. A major in the Jordanian army, Basma
had just completed her parachuting course in 1993 when her
commanding officer teased her, "Ha, ha, but you'll never learn to
dive." Rising to the challenge, she became the first Jordanian
woman to qualify as a navy diver. And she licked her fear. "I was
afraid because I didn't know what was below the surface of the
water. Now I know," she says.
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HEROES FOR THE PLANET
heroes gallery
Sylvia Earle
Niaz Dorry
Richard Wheeler
Guy and Neca Marcovaldi
Princess Basma
Hirofumi Yamashita
Legacy: Remembering Jacques-Yves Cousteau
Peter Raven
William McDonough
Russell Mittermeier
Robert F. Kennedy and John Cronin
Yvon Chouinard
Cynthia Moss
OCEAN WEB RESOURCES
International Maritime Organization
United Nation's agency working to improve maritime safety and prevent
pollution from ships
American Oceans Campaign
Committed to protecting and preserving coastal waters, estuaries, bays,
wetlands, and deep oceans
SeaWeb
Public education program designed to raise awareness of the ocean and
the life within it
Ocean Views
ALL HANDS ON DECK
Basma has enlisted divers from her country's navy to help with cleanup efforts and once even got U.S. Marines to lend their
skills to the campaign
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Books on Oceans and the environment @barnesandnoble.com
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