Her Royal Highness Princess Lalla Hasnaa Chaired the Board of Trustees of the Mohammed VI Foundation for Environment Protection Friday, April 30th, 2010
Her Royal Highness Princess Lalla Hasnaa, Chairperson of the Mohammed VI Foundation for Environment Protection has chaired the Board of Trustees in the presence of Ms. Amina Belkhadra, Minister of Energy, Mines, Water and the Environment, and Mr. Zahoud, Secretary of State for Water and Environment, both members of the board.
At the beginning of the work, Her Royal Highness welcomed the impetus given by His Majesty the King to environmental and sustainable development issues since the Throne Speech on July 30, 2009 to the festivities of Earth Day in Rabat. This Royal support, added Her Royal Highness, requires the Foundation to stay in the course of its endeavours by ensuring greater amplification, strength and vision.
In the first part of the Board’s work, Her Royal Highness reviewed the 2009 results of various programs undertaken by the Foundation, as follows:
Clean Beaches Program:
Fifty-three beaches were involved in the program, out of which 16 were labelled “Blue Flag” for summer 2009.
Qualit’air PROGRAM:
This program, which expires according to the road map devised by the Council in 2002, showed significant outcomes.
– Awareness raising and Training of Garage and technical inspection center staff
– Blank control campaign on motor vehicles
– Removal of ordinary diesel and generalization of 50ppm diesel
– Establishment of the national air quality monitoring network in all Morocco’s major cities.
– Launching of an eco epidemiological study in partnership with the Ministry of Health and assistance of an expert from the WHO.
VOLUNTARY CARBON OFFSET PROGRAM:
The most recent Foundation project, this program is now on the verge of implementation in conjunction with the signing of a partnership with CDG, BCP, ONE, ONEP and the Agence de l’Oriental.
To be recalled is that the program funds are dedicated to planting and environmental education in schools for the promotion of renewable energy.
On the other hand, since December 2009, the Foundation joined the United Nations Conference on Climate Change in Copenhagen as an observer.
In the second part of the proceedings devoted to the future outlook, Her Royal Highness Princess Lalla Hasnaa sought to highlight the strategic positioning of the Mohammed VI Foundation for Environment Protection, which intends to become a recognized player at the regional level and the national benchmark education for sustainable development arena.
By making environmental education the foundation of its mission, the Foundation wishes to contribute to the promotion of the right to environment and capacity building for the effective exercise of environmental duties by citizens, economic players, associations and government.
In light of this positioning, the Council approved the guidelines outlined by Her Royal Highness for the different programs.
Thus the beaches program will move in the direction of a national program including all the beaches covered by the quality control of bathing waters. The program will expand from 53 to 114 beaches beginning the 2011 season.
