AJMAL HASAN
Photographer, Naturalist and Wildlife Enthusiast
Chief Engineer at Dubai Natural History Group
Ajmal, who currently lives and works in Sharjah with a full-time job at a prominent University, is a wildlife lover and amateur photographer who has been shooting and documenting his finds in the UAE since 2009. Passionate about wildlife conservation, he makes efforts wherever he can to promote the local flora and fauna of the Emirates. With a special emphasis on reptiles, Ajmal started documenting his trips with images showcasing a variety of incredible wildlife: his long-time goal is to spread awareness about the local environment through all means possible. Dedicated trekker, he heads out into deserts, mountains, wadis and sabkhas of the UAE on a routine basis.
Ajmal has participated in many regional initiatives with research projects/papers and has had the chance to assist in many animals releases back into their habitat. Ajmal is also a Listed Photographer with the Marine PhotoBank project where one of his photos of a feeding flock of more than 10,000 Socotra Cormorants was nominated for the Marine PhotoBank 2010 Photo Competition. Ajmal has also contributed many photographs from his collection to leading wildlife projects such as ARKive and has also contributed many articles to the DNHG monthly newsletter, Gazelle.
JONATHAN ALI KHAN
Natural History Filmmaker and Wildlife Commentator
Managing Director at Wild Planet Productions
Project Leader at The Sharkquest Arabia Initiative
With a burning passion for natural history and best known for his conservation awareness work about the marine environment, JAK, as he is known by friends and colleagues, is a filmmaker and wildlife commentator on a mission. Living in the region for over 25 years has given him opportunity to explore the Arabian Peninsula’s natural world in intimate detail on land and sea. As a filmmaker, JAK created and filmed the first regional natural history 12 part TV series featuring wildlife and conservation efforts throughout the mountains, deserts and seas of Saudi Arabia, Oman, UAE, Jordan and Yemen called “Arabia’s Cycle of Life”. Not only a first for the region, but this award winning series was the first rehional production to ever have been picked up by the Discovery Channel for Animal Planet. As a diver and explorer with thousands of hours in the water, JAK has explored every nook and cranny in all the seas surrounding the Arabian Peninsula’s coastline, leading expeditions with scientists and film crew to study and observe the environmental conditions revealing new and important information. His current project called ‘Sharkquest Arabia’ is a 3 part documentary mini-series featuring the true status of sharks in our waters, looking at the importance of research, assessing the severity of conservation issues and highlighting the alarming role this region plays in supplying shark fins to the Far East. JAK will be contributing features about Arabia’s terrestrial and marine wildlife whilst stressing the importance about how increasing people’s exposure to natural history can help to heal their disconnection from nature.
LEENA AL ABBAS
Organic Beauty Expert
Founder and CEO at Zen Beauty Lounge
UAE national, Leena summarizes in three words the reason why she plunged into starting Zen Beauty Lounge: ‘It Felt Right’. While working as marketing and corporate communications director at Dubai Chamber of Commerce & Industry, Leena managed to carve a niche for herself in the green industry, by starting Dubai’s first eco-friendly salon, Zen Beauty Lounge, in Discovery Gardens. From being a driven woman in the marketing and management field for about 15 years, the idea of a regular salon with chemical laden products was against Leena’s green lifestyle who turned vegan back in 2008, and she began toying with the idea to offer different options with natural, ethical spa and beauty services in one place.
MARTA YANCI
Chef and Healthy Food Specialist
Founder of Marta’s Kitchen
When the Basque-born Marta Yanci left a career in Law to launch Marta’s Kitchen it was“a risk”, but food has always been something about which she is passionate. With a vast heritage of gourmet food tradition from her parents, who were avid customers of Spain’s best restaurants, she and her husband shared a passion for food, which translated into spending all their students savings to travel Europe to discover the continent’s best restaurants.
When Marta moved to the UAE and after many compliments on her home cooking, she started a catering business based on family’s recipes, lessons learned in Europe’s best restaurants and a considerable collection of food literature. Fo Goumbook Marta focuses on home-made food and her recipes tend to be fun and easy as the idea is to help us prepare healthy and different options for our lunchboxes to take with us at work or for our children at school!
ZEINA ESAT
Organic Food Enthusiast
Studied as Nutritional Consultant at Global College of Natural Medicine
Dubai resident, Zeina was born in Damascus and lived in Turkey for 5 years. She has always been interested in nutrition and a healthy lifestyle, and attended various courses and training in Turkey on Turkish Food and traditional cooking. Her natural ability for home cooking has blossomed into creative and healthy recipes, using various spices, flavors and natural organic ingredients. For Zeina, organic food has benefits that extend to the environment, saving our planet from needless contact with unnatural and chemical contaminants: if more people consume organic food, less pollution will end up in land and water. She hopes that through her collaboration with Goumbook she will inspire others to consume healthy food for the sake of our body and the environment.
