HRH Prince Moulay Rachid highlights importance of preservation of the ancient art of falconry

Morocco-Zemamra, November 11, 2007 – As continuing commitment to his drive for youth empowerment, HRH Prince Moulay Rachid, Honorary President of the Moroccan Falconers Association Al-Noubala, on Saturday has set the Moroccan Falconry Exhibitions, to display the young falconers names in the sport, with the aim to spark a new understanding for both birds of prey and falconry and the need to protect the environment in general.

An extensive program was decided to give falconry in Morocco a new development. With plenty of family fun and unique day out of activities for all to enjoy, the goal of the exhibition was to motivate through education a new generation of young falconers and serve as an important educational facility with providing an insight into the habits of many birds and to educate about this tradition that must be not forgotten or abused.

The young falconers who participated in this exhibition, were very grateful for the opportunity and experiments that enrich their skills, allow them to compare practices with those of other, learn a lot, and obtain the confidence with the training assiduously joined their unwavering motivation that will add new letters of nobility to the Moroccan falconry.

Falconry is an ancient sport and very demanding endeavor, taking wild quarry in its natural state with a trained raptor and requiring a serious dedication of time and energy from the falconer.

Comments

[salaman]

maryam if you seek prince help you must contact prince people, i'm sure they can be help to you, prince helped many peole that i know. i don't think he has time to read every comment he is very busy man. if you leave in marrakech you must know prince has next month his festival , marrakech international film festival, he is in and out in marrakech almost every day, prince has many offices in marrakech, ask around.

[Maryam]

Dear Honorable Sir,
I am an American who has been living in your beautiful country for nearly 7 years. So charmed were we that we bought a piece of land in Marrakech and are building a home. I also started a blog called My Marrakesh (www.moroccanmaryam.typepad.com). My Marrakesh has garnered a very large following, and I routinely have between 1500 and 2500 hits per day on my blog. In one year, I have had nearly 350,000 visitors to my blog. My blog recently came in second in the world’s largest blog competition, the 2007 Annual Weblog Awards, in the category Best Blog in the Middle East and Africa. Some have asked whether I work for the Moroccan Ministry of Foreign Affairs, because I have become known as an ambassador of sorts of Marrakech .

I used to live in Rabat, where I ran the Morocco office of an international organization. There my family and I received a 1 year carte de sejour and then had it renewed for 5 years without any problem. 2 years ago we moved to Marrakech and received a 1 year carte de sejour, which expired a year before the expiration of our still valid 5-year carte de sejour. Since that time, however, my family (my husband is also American) have had numerous issues with the Gendarmerie of Ourika. The service has been horribly inefficient, bordering on ludicrous. We have spent an incredible amount of time and energy trying to get this sorted out, to no avail. I travel a great deal for my job all around the world and so the issue of leaving every 3 months is not a problem for me. But my husband and my children (at the American school) are now being harassed because somehow (why?) we can not procure a carte de sejour. Every time we call or go see the authorities, we are told a different story (that something else is mysteriously missing or incorrect). We can only surmise that the authorities are playing games with us, which we make us uncomfortable for ethical reasons.

I beseech you to please help out a fellow blogger, who has devoted countless hours to educating the world about the true beauty of Morocco and Marrakech. Please know that I have not revealed this information on my own blog out of fear that it would negatively impact so many opinions about Morocco.

Thanking you in advance for your assistance,
Maryam