DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Britain’s Prince William made his first official visit to the United Arab Emirates on Thursday, where the future monarch is highlighting his passionate work around wildlife conservation and climate change.
The one-day visit by the Duke of Cambridge marks a significant milestone in relations between the U.K. and the UAE, a Western-allied Gulf Arab nation ruled by hereditary leaders. The prince is expected to meet with Dubai Crown Prince Sheikh Hamdan bin Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, the son of Dubai’s ruler Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum.
Sheikh Mohammed’s headline-grabbing divorce settlement and custody battle has played out in British courts over the past year.
Queen Elizabeth II first visited the UAE as monarch in 1979, while Prince Charles’ last visit was in 2016.
The former British protectorate is a magnet for British nationals, whose culture permeates nearly every aspect of expatriate life in this country of over 9 million, where foreigners comprise around 90% of the population.
There are more than 100,000 British citizens living in the UAE and more than 6,000 British companies operating in the country, according to the British Business Group in Dubai and Northern Emirates.
The Duke of Cambridge’s visit coincides with the U.K.’s national day at Expo 2020, the world’s fair taking place in Dubai. Prince William visited the U.K. pavilion and toured the $7 billion grounds of the Expo site, as well as the United Arab Emirates’ falcon-shaped pavilion.
As he toured the UAE, news emerged that his 73-year-old father, Prince Charles, had tested positive for COVID-19 and is self-isolating. It’s the second time the heir to the throne contracts the coronavirus.
In his first stop in Dubai, Prince William visited DP World’s massive Jebel Ali Port, where he watched cargo being scanned and inspected by customs to apparently highlight efforts tackling the illegal wildlife trade. His visit comes more than 40 years after his grandmother inaugurated the port during her royal UAE tour.
The Dubai-based global ports operator DP World is a principal partner of Prince William’s United for Wildlife, an initiative established by the prince in 2014 to help counter trade in illegal wildlife. The Dubai government-owned port operator, in partnership with Dubai Expo 2020, is also among the founding funding partners to the prince’s Earthshot Prize.
Launched by Prince William and The Royal Foundation of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge in late 2020, The Earthshot Prize held its first-ever award ceremony late last year, offering five, 1 million-pound ($1.36 million) prizes to innovators, entrepreneurs and scientists seeking solutions to the world’s greatest environmental problems. The award is being funded for 10 years, totaling 50 prizes.
This year’s award ceremony will be held in the United States. Last year’s finalists will showcase their innovative solutions to an audience at Expo’s DP World pavilion following a speech by Prince William.
The duke, like his father Prince Charles, has long used his platform to advocate for greater environmental awareness, warning that the Earth is at a tipping point and facing irreparable damage unless action is taken to repair the planet.
Prince William, who is traveling without his wife, Catherine, began his tour in the UAE with a visit to Abu Dhabi’s Jubail Mangrove Park to learn more about local conservation efforts for the plant that helps protect coastal areas from erosion. There, he met with children planting mangroves, and he planted one himself. He was accompanied by Sheikh Khaled bin Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, a son of Abu Dhabi’s powerful crown prince.
While in Dubai, the duke is also expected to meet with U.K. sports figures as the Queen’s Baton Relay makes it way around Dubai’s Expo site to pavilions of countries in the Commonwealth — mostly territories with former colonial ties to Britain. The baton contains a message from Queen Elizabeth and travels to all 72 nations and territories ahead of the Commonwealth Games.
Katy Holmes, general manager of the British Business Group in Dubai, said Britons are really excited about the prince’s visit because it sends a positive message about strengthening a bilateral relationship so well established by Queen Elizabeth II, who marked 70 years on the throne Sunday.
“He’s very well regarded as a royal and he is the future of the U.K. monarchy, so I think there’s interest from that perspective. But it’s also a celebration of Expo,” said Holmes, who is among those invited to attend an evening performance at Expo that will be attended by Prince William.
The territories of the UAE have attracted British attention since the early 18th Century, when the area was seen as part of a strategic Persian Gulf trade route with links to India and other British colonies. The territories, ruled by various tribal sheikhs, later became a British protectorate and remained so for 150 years until the founding of the United Arab Emirates in 1971.
Oil wealth helped rapidly transform Abu Dhabi’s and Dubai’s humid coastlines into a head-turning metropolis of skyscrapers and endless five-star hotels. South Asian migrant workers have borne the brunt of building and paving the UAE’s cities from the desert up. British nationals, however, have largely enjoyed the higher pay, warmer winters, lower tax rates and luxury living conditions afforded to Western expatriates in the Gulf.
British nationals fill critical teaching jobs in the country, but also hold a range of positions working as hair stylists, fitness trainers, real estate brokers, bartenders, hotel managers and events planners, to name a few.
British accents dominate English-language radio broadcasts and British pub culture is popular in Dubai. In a rare move, the UAE granted citizenship to Sir Tim Clark, the British president of the long-haul carrier Emirates, who helped grow the Dubai-based airline into a globally recognized brand.
