Natalie Banks

Environmentalist, Founder of Azraq

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Hosted by

Hilmarie Hutchison

Co-Host

Namita Thakkar

About Natalie Banks

Environmentalist and Founder of Azraq

Natalie is a qualified journalist and has worked with various news agencies globally throughout the past 20 years. She then started her career as a radio journalist before working as a media adviser for the Commonwealth Government of Australia, later moving to local government in Western Australia and the state government, before moving into the not-for-profit sector.

Natalie is also a Scuba Diving Instructor with the Professional Association of Diving Instructors (PADI) and is an Independent Instructor teaching through various dive schools across the United Arab Emirates (UAE), including Al Boom. When she moved to the United Arab Emirates (UAE), she focussed her attention on marine conservation issues in the region and is the Founder of a not-for-profit organisation called Azraq.

About this Episode

In this episode, we talk to Natalie about her incredible and successful career in journalism, radio, and as a media adviser for the Government of Australia. Her general proactive approach to doing things herself, such as taking on the Government of Australia head-on as well as founding the very first not-for-profit marine conservation organization here in the UAE called Azraq.

We tackle the many issues with marine pollution here in the UAE, the importance of using recyclable products, and issues with littering on beaches.

For all this and more tune into this highly informative episode.

“I started to realize that I could no longer dive without seeing pollution in the water, whether that be a marine debris or whether that be contaminates and it really impacted me in the fact that I had started my journey being a shark conservationist.”
Natalie Banks

“We’re talking about not just the protection of the ocean, we’re talking about the protection of humanity and this is why I feel it’s important to do what we do because we’re looking at conserving people and protecting people when we talk about marine conservation.”

– Natalie Banks

Show highlights

Seeing marine life entangled or impacted by this debris is absolutely heartbreaking. We are basically visitors to their home and we trashed it completely. - Natalie Banks Click To Tweet

“When we talk about protecting our oceans, our sharks are our key strength species. A lot of people have a lot of fear around sharks but again when it comes to what we do when people are educating that importance about the role that sharks play, then we are more to decide to want to protect them but also to respect them, to replace the fear with respect, a healthy amount of respect is probably what’s needed for sharks.”

Natalie Banks

“Every second breath that we take as humans come from our oceans and so we need these bodies of water to give us oxygen to survive and if we don’t protect them, then we are impacting humanity, it’s not just impacting the marine environment itself.”
Natalie Banks

“When somebody throws some mud, if they’re not in the fight with me, the mud needs to be diverted and my support system be strong enough to help me get through that day.”
Natalie Banks