JEDDAH: For 16 years, Winston Cowie has explored the Arabian Peninsula from beneath its seas to its mountains and deserts, building a life and career that he chronicles in his new book.

The New Zealand-born marine conservationist, athlete and award-winning filmmaker has gathered his experiences in “Kiwi to the Kingdoms: New Zealand to Blue Arabia,” which was launched at Huna Takhassusi in Riyadh on Friday. It is published by SLKY World, which launched a new Saudi division in Riyadh this summer.

“Riyadh is the new book rock capital of the world. There’s a real energy here,” Cowie told Arab News, describing the city as “one of the most exciting in the world.”

When asked what runs through his mind as he gets ready to introduce locals to his memoir, his answer is heartfelt: “Pride in Saudi Arabia, its nature, its people and its vision. I am really proud to be having this launch in Riyadh.”

A mentee of British polar explorer and activist Sir Robert Swan, who taught him that “storytelling is one of the best ways to build understanding,” Cowie is working in Saudi Arabia on large-scale conservation programs. He has spent much of his adult life traveling across the Kingdom, the UAE, Oman and Qatar. 

“I want readers to visit and experience the Arabia that I have come to know — its mountains, reefs, deserts, wildlife and people — not the headlines,” he said.

The title’s arc is autobiographical; Cowie was living on a boat while working at one of New Zealand’s top law firms when a friend’s advice — “Life’s your game, Winnie, no one else’s” —set him on a path to Oxford University. There he studied nature, society and environmental policy, before eventually moving to the Gulf, where he began working in marine conservation. 

Three years ago, sitting around a campfire, Cowie was inspired to write about his experiences on the Arabian Peninsula. He began writing what started as “short stories of adventures,” which gradually grew into the book.

“Originally, I thought this might be just another travel book,” he admitted, “But I became determined to communicate the fascinating natural and cultural reality that is Arabia. And I’ve always loved telling stories — whether through books, directing documentary films or conservation projects.”

The deeper he got into the region’s ecology and society, the more the project insisted on becoming an attempt to communicate what he has come to call “Blue Arabia.”

If the memoir has a beating heart, it beats underwater. The author has logged, by his own estimate, roughly two months of accumulated dive time across the Red Sea, the Gulf of Aqaba, and the waters of the UAE, Oman and Qatar. 

He speaks of the region’s marine life with the specificity of a scientist and the wonder of a devotee. “I think across all these countries I have seen a real passion to safeguard the marine environment,” he said. “The result is thriving marine ecosystems and, for tourists, a wonderful visitor experience.”

In Saudi Arabia, the Red Sea and Gulf of Aqaba contain some of “the world’s most spectacular coral reefs, extraordinary marine biodiversity and ecosystems that are proving remarkably resilient,” he added. “I am talking 100 percent coral cover in places — if you see it once, it stays with you for life. It takes your breath away.”

He wants that ecosystem spoken of in the same register as the Great Barrier Reef or the Galapagos, arguing that Blue Arabia “remains one of the world’s great conservation stories waiting to be told.” 

His fascination is unsurprising: Saudi Arabia’s natural landscape has always defied the singular image often imposed upon it. Its Red Sea coastline, mountain ranges and desert environments support an extraordinary range of species.

While most people “think of Saudi Arabia as a desert,” he says, his work has taken him diving through the Red Sea, across the Bajdah Desert, and up eight peaks in the Kingdom’s northwest. Turtles, dolphins and dugongs populate its waters, while ibex, wolves and caracals roam its highlands, an area Cowie describes as “proper wild Arabia.”

Yet no account of conservation can be complete without the communities whose relationships with these ecosystems long predate modern environmental policy.

Along Saudi Arabia’s coast, generations of fishers and coastal communities have built their livelihoods around the sea, accumulating an intimate knowledge of its rhythms, species and changing conditions.

Over years of fisheries and marine work across Saudi Arabia, Cowie came to see that knowledge as an essential part of conservation.

“I’ve learned to listen,” he said. “Some of the best conservation knowledge doesn’t come from scientific papers — it comes from fishers who have spent decades on the water, Bedouin or rangers who know every valley, and communities whose connection to place spans generations.”

He is equally attentive to what is being built around that ecology — the Kingdom’s protected areas, coral research, fisheries management and rewilding programs.

“What excites me most is the recognition that conservation and economic development are not opposing ideas, they strengthen one another when done well,” Cowie explained. 

Coming from a country whose identity is bound so tightly to the ocean, he sees the same instinct alive in Saudi Arabia.

“Saudis and Kiwis care about their marine environment and the communities that rely on it,” he said. “Vision 2030 is reconnecting people with the sea while investing in conservation, tourism and protected areas. It is exciting to witness and be here in the Kingdom as Blue Arabia comes to life.”

Cowie remains a proud Kiwi, shaped by New Zealand’s relationship to nature and its outward curiosity, but has also found a sense of belonging here.

“Bo Leya Hamra (‘the one with the red beard’) is my dhow sailing name,” he said. “I am proud to be part of Arabian culture as well. Arabia has shaped the second half of my life.”

He sees shared values between the Arabian Peninsula and New Zealand: “We are both cultures that are very family-orientated,” he said. “We are both very welcoming, and we love the sea and natural world.”

Cowie’s ambitions for “Kiwi to the Kingdoms” are to leave the reader with the urge to move: “If one person is inspired to chase their dreams or simply appreciate their own region’s natural heritage a little more, then I will consider my book a success.”