Reflections from the Windsor Castle State Banquet

At Windsor Castle on Tuesday evening, I found myself speaking to King Charles III about protecting marine life. Of all the conversations I imagined having at a State Banquet, this was perhaps the one that felt most familiar. For a few moments, the grandeur of our surroundings gave way to a subject that has occupied much of my professional life: what becomes of the sea when we fail to protect it?
Only weeks earlier, when the Royal Household first contacted me about attending the banquet in honour of His Majesty Sultan Haitham bin Tarik as the King’s guest, I had wondered whether someone was playing an elaborate joke. It took a few exchanges before the invitation felt real. By the time I walked into Windsor, the disbelief had given way to gratitude, and some nervousness. I arrived knowing very few people, and unfamiliar rooms can leave even experienced people briefly uncertain of where they belong. The warmth of those who introduced themselves, and then introduced me to others, eased that feeling. When His Majesty the Sultan greeted me by name, an already extraordinary evening became profoundly personal.
In his speech, King Charles spoke of Oman’s maritime history, of seafarers crossing the Indian Ocean centuries before our countries formalised their relationship. He recognised the place of young people in Oman’s development and warned that climate change would alter the lands and seas they inherit.
His Majesty the Sultan brought another dimension to the same responsibility. He spoke of young Omanis studying in Britain and building relationships that endure beyond treaties. He also acknowledged the King’s longstanding commitment to young people and environmental protection.
Listening to both, I heard two responsibilities being described. One concerns the condition of the sea the next generation receives; the other concerns what we equip them with before they receive it. We are often more comfortable accounting for the second. Scholarships can be counted, and programmes can report their achievements at year’s end. The condition of the sea demands a different kind of accounting, sustained across decades rather than funding cycles. A healthy ecosystem cannot be declared into existence by the end of a reporting period.
Along our coast, the sea carries livelihoods and generations of accumulated knowledge about how to read it. Protecting it asks for unglamorous commitments: surveys repeated in the same stretch of water long enough to establish what is changing, or a permit refused when refusal is economically inconvenient. I think of the coastal communities I encountered through my research in Al Batinah North and Al Batinah South, where questions about water and land were questions about the future of a home. For those families, an environmental decision was never simply a line in a report.
The next phase of Omani-British cooperation has an opportunity to make this kind of patience possible. Shared marine research and exchanges for young scientists would be welcome, but the deeper test is whether those partnerships last long enough to inform decisions, and whether the scientists themselves are trusted to help make them.
Everyone in that hall would say yes to protecting the seas the next generation inherits, which makes it an easy question. The harder one is whether any authority over those seas comes with the inheritance. I recognise myself in the young people those speeches described: educated abroad, encouraged to return, equipped with knowledge and introductions. I have spent years trying to turn those opportunities into decisions that hold. What I cannot tell you is whether I have done enough to make that authority available to anyone younger, or whether I have handed them the same invitation to wait.
The writer is an Omani environmental strategist advancing Middle East climate action and women’s leadership. Follow her on LinkedIn: @RumaithaAlBusaidi