Seed money up to $1 million to protect your local birds. Apply today. Sick of reading about Cyprus songbirds killed and pickled for snacks? Weary of wild killing sprees like Egypt’s sanctioned bird hunt ? Or maybe the downed flamingos in Kuwait ruffled your feathers? BirdLife International has created a fund to underwrite environmental preservation projects in one of the […]
Kuwait is making its debut at the 13th Venice Biennale this year, and they’re doing so with some serious style. The pavilion features a cavernous industrial space interrupted with dangling speakers, orange cushions and abandoned master plans, and it was commissioned by the National Council for Culture, Arts and Letters (NCAA). Unlike many of the […]
Alzainah Albabtain, a 22 year old student, is growing her own food in the scorching heat of Kuwait and wants others to give it go too A green fingered student from Kuwait is taking the blogosphere by storm with her ‘It All Grows’ blog. Filled to the rafters with gorgeous photos of lovely fruit and […]
Find out how Middle Eastern and North African nations fared in the recent global Ocean Health Index (I’ll give you a clue – not very well) With a recent Greenpeace report urging action to tackle the toxicity of Lebanon’s waters due to trash, now seems the perfect time to look into the health of the […]
Iranians may have turned to aubergines due to chicken shortages – but the world over may be forced to go vegetarian due to food shortages in the next 40 years According to the latest findings, the world’s population may have to switch almost completely to a vegetarian diet over the next 40 years to avoid […]
What can Islam do for the environment? That’s a question I have been asking myself for some years now and, in all honestly, I am nowhere near answering it fully. I have definitely enjoyed looking into the green ethics of Islam in a bid to help Muslims worldwide take up the environmentally-friendly path, but I […]
Step back, LEED. Back off, BREEAM. Easy there, Estidama: Qatar’s developing a new building standard and it’s called GSAS. Qatar’s revamped its QSAS green building rating system. Re-launched under a new name, the Global Sustainability Assessment System (GSAS) is muscling in as Middle East- North Africa’s green standard. Developed by the Gulf Organization for Research and […]
Kuwait is planning to build a city in the desert for 2,500 residents, and the Sabah Al-Ahmad Culture Center will be its nucleus. Albeit materially extravagant, BDP. has proposed a design that takes energy conservation very seriously. And in this relentlessly hot and humid seaside environment along the Gulf, that won’t be easy. Integrated with photovoltaic […]
Green Prophet’s reports on happenings in the Gulf region have increasingly been using the acronym GCC, which stands for Gulf Cooperation Council. Perhaps a bit of an explanation is in order. GCC is a political and economic alliance between Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, United Arab Emirates (UAE), Qatar and Saudi Arabia (KSA). It was formed in 1981 following […]
The Kuwaiti-Spanish Architecture firm AGi scooped two coveted awards at the International Property Award held in Burj Al-Arab, Dubai. In addition to being recognized for its Wafra Living Complex, the firm’s experimental Wafra Wind Tower project has received the Best Architecture Multiple Residence Award. A Google and Bloomberg TV channel collaborative, the International Property Award […]
I know I know, the proposed federation of six gulf countries has nothing to do with anything remotely green. I also realize that the ulterior motive is to gain political strength and stability in the region and it is possible that this may even escalate the unrest, given that not everyone is happy with this […]
According to the World Wildlife Fund’s latest report, Qatar still has the world’s largest carbon footprint It’s been a couple of years since Qatar was awarded the ‘largest carbon footprint in the world‘ title (relative to the size of its population), but it appears little has changed since then. Despite various green initiative such as […]
Emirati malls suffer a blistering review in a 21 minute podcast on green retail. Radio station Dubai Eye 103.8 FM (which not long ago featured Green Prophet here) recently broadcast an interview with Buro Happold’s expert in sustainability and alternative technologies, Robert Cooke. Cooke, who is also Technical Committee Coordinator of Emirates Green Building Council, begins by saying […]
Bringing the merits and techniques of earth architecture to those unable to travel to the California Institute of Earth Architecture founded by Nader Khalili in 1986 was always the internationally-renowned architect’s priority, and it finally came to fruition in 2011 at the first six-day onsite International Workshop in Australia. Now Hooman Fazly and Robert Gordon […]
Sudan’s Mohammad Baloola says his invention can eradicate an emerging Gulf disease: diabetes. As a biomedical engineering student at Ajman University of Science and Technology, Mohammad Baloola found homegrown inspiration for his final year project. Four members of his family are diabetic, a collective muse for his ingenious artificial pancreas. The pancreas is the body’s sole […]