THEY are the most unlikely "seabed fellows".
The Scottish Association for Marine Science (SAMS), based in Oban, with its quaint Victorian facade and 8,500 population, is preparing to open a branch office in Abu Dhabi.
The organisation is on a mission to help the oil-rich Arabs protect their marine resources and expand their expertise by developing commercial, research and educational links between the Argyll port and the United Arab Emirates.
The venture evolved after a chance discussion between an expat in the UAE and a SAMS worker, about the possible gap in the Emirates for advanced marine science expertise.
Dr Tracy Shimmield, managing director of the research company, said the relationship between the two places has grown over the last four years.
She said: "What they are wanting to do now is find out how to manage their Gulf, because they want to have it for future generations.
"They want to expand aquaculture for food security, so that they have got lots of fish.
"The marine environment in the Gulf is under threat at the moment from climate change, sea level rises resulting from climate change, the impact of temperature rise, desalination plants that discharge into the sea and building development and expansion."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article