Can mega well bring peace to Sudan? At least 300,000 people died and almost three million were displaced by the Darfur conflict in Sudan. Egyptian-American geologist Farouk El-Baz believes that limited access to water is one of the root causes of this conflict. Doctor El-Baz is director of Boston University’s center for remote sensing. He […]
10 King and 10 Gentoo Penguins imported from Texas are now living at Ski Dubai – an indoor ski slope in the desert! Picture : © Samuel Blanc / www.sblanc.com It’s bizarre enough that Dubai has an indoor ski slope despite outdoor summer temperatures averaging at over 40 degrees Celsius, but now a colony of penguins has […]
Next Wednesday activists will hold a public forum to democratically demand access to the Horsh Beirut urban park. In 1696, the Horsh Beirut Pine forest used to be as large as 1,250,000 square meters but the Crusaders, Mamluks, Ottomans, and World War II allies each took their turn plundering its timber in order to build ships and weapons. Further damage […]
Join the debate: is the world’s first all-women falconry association in Qatar a bad idea? Falconry is a time-honored tradition in the Gulf, but like more recent sports such as race-car driving and rugby, it is a male-dominated sport. So when the Katara cultural village in Qatar recently announced the launch of the world’s first female […]
Jason deCaires Taylor uses eco art to conserve a fragile ecosystem See a starfish caress a schoolgirl’s cheek as she holds hands with the boy with the algae beard. Watch a baby shark swirl‘round that Beetle parked curbside to coral and lobsters. Underwater, everything’s magnified. Changing currents and depths cause kaleidoscopic effects. Dive in next […]
Adventures in Lebanon is offering a Valentine’s Day snowshoeing tour that is bound to heat up this special day! Valentine’s Day is just around the corner and if you’re anything like us, you’re scratching your head looking for fun-loving things to do that don’t involve diabetes-inducing chocolate and environmentally destructive flowers. Why not treat your […]
If you are of the 41 percent that lives in drylands, your future depends on supporting plant biodiversity. An international team of researchers including Dr. Bertrand Boeken of the Jacob Blaustein Institutes for Desert Research at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev suggest in a new study that plant biodiversity preservation is crucial to buffer negative […]
Anyone who loves nature will enjoy Balyolu’s week long tour on Northeastern Turkey’s honey road. Update May 20, 2020: this tour is no longer operating. It’s impossible to understate the importance of bees. Like fruit bats – thousands of which were gunned down by unknown assailants in Lebanon last weekend – they are pollinators that […]
Thousands of fruit bats in Lebanon were sprayed with shotgun and AK-47 bullets over the weekend. Thousands of fruit bats could have used Batman’s help last weekend when one or more unidentified assailants unleashed a spray of shotgun and AK-47 shells inside a cave in northern Lebanon. This senseless massacre wiped out at least 5,000 […]
Barcelona hopes to have an indoor ski slope as nice as Ski Dubai (pictured), but carbon neutral. Barcelona is not as hot as places like Abu Dhabi and Dubai, which now has an indoor snow ski slope. But they appear to be envious of Dubai’s very ungreen approach to denying that the country is a […]
Putting political differences aside, Israelis and Palestinians unite to restore a section of the Kishon River – one of the region’s most polluted. Yet another joint Israeli and the Palestinian Authority eco-project challenges the mainstream notion that it’s all war and friction between Jews and Arabs. Despite a recent accusation by the French Parliament that […]
Tourists offended by this gruesome display of endangered species reported the Picalbatros restaurant in Hurghada, Egypt to the local conservation agency. Tourists who dine at the Pickalbatros restaurant in Hurghada might be greeted with a gruesome scene: sharks, rays, and parrot fish hanging from hooks, Egypt Independent reports. While some people have turned a blind […]
Lebanon boasts one of the world’s most sophisticated hiking trail networks, which traverses 75 towns and villages. A few years ago, John Keyrouz fled the fast lane in Los Angeles and returned to Lebanon. When he ventured into the mountains to relive fond childhood hiking memories, he was astounded to discover a world class trail […]
One alternative to the Red-Dead Canal is the Med-Dead Canal hydro pump. The massive hydro pump idea has been around since the 70s and has questionable environmental outcomes. The Israel Chamber of Commerce recently requested that the government reinvestigate a project to connect the Dead Sea and Mediterranean Sea. In a joint letter to Environmental […]
Ever since the classic The Book Of One Thousand and One Nights, which include tales on Aladdin and the Lamp, Sinbad the Sailor and Alai Babba and the Forty Thieves, the Arabian Peninsula, and seacoasts have never been the same. While the characters may be fictional (or maybe not?), the actual location of these magical […]
Mars rock rarer than gold and called Tissint falls in Morocco. This might explain mystical Moroccan men: maybe they really are from Mars? Or at least influenced by the Martian planet? Scientists have just confirmed that a meteor shower that brought a 15 pound rock hurtling into Morocco really did come from Mars. This is […]
Because cheetahs don’t belong on leashes, Dubai’s neighbor, Ajman, has passed a law that makes it illegal for anyone to have wild animals or reptiles in their homes. Remember the Porsche driver in Dubai who thought it was cool to walk his pet cheetah on a leash in the middle of a busy urban center? […]
New drilling results from the Dead Sea provides clues that the Dead Sea almost dried up because of climate change — 125,000 years ago! The rapidly dropping water level of the Dead Sea, a cause of much concern today, occurred as well in the distant past, resulting in the severe drying up of the lake, […]
The US Navy has trained dolphins to detect underwater mines since 1960. Last week the Iranian Defense Minister Ahmad Vahidi denied that Iran had threatened to close the Strait of Hormuz – a crucial 54km wide strait through which Gulf countries export petroleum – but the United States press has been abuzz with reports that oil exports […]
Scientists discover that every year Oman loses a little bit more of its landmass to rising sea levels. Within the next 100 years, global sea levels are expected to rise by at least 1 meter and swallow up coastal towns and cities – a reality from which the Middle East is not exempt. Already geoscientists […]
The Siraj Centre is offering walk and bike tours across the West Bank as well as an environmental-focused trip in 2012 The ‘Environment and Occupation Trip 2012’ tour will explore issues such as freedom of access to water and sanitation in the West Bank and the Jordan Valley. It will also be looking at deforestation […]
While the Arab world has close ties with their hardy camels, Australia considers their 1.2 million population of wild camels to be nothing more than pests. Camels are valued in the Arab world for their meat, milk, and leather, but in Australia, more than one million wild Dromedary camels are considered pests. They are also […]
Biodiversity preservation, waste management, and securing water sources are just a few of the principles being applied to convert Egypt’s Sharm el-Sheikh diving destination into an “green city.” Egypt’s Ministers of Environment and Tourism signed a tripartite agreement with the South Sinai governor to convert the popular Egyptian diving town Sharm el-Sheikh into a bonafide […]
Jordanian Nadia Lawton, a permaculture teacher tells Green Prophet why she believes permaculture could be the region’s silver green bullet. “Permaculture made total common sense to me,” insists Nadia Lawton, “it also fitted with my life ethics a a Muslim.” While the first part of Nadia’s statement may not be considered unique, her remark about […]
Turkish environmental journalist Mahmut Boynudelik has proposed a set of fundamental ecological principles to be enshrined in the country’s new constitution. Last Wednesday, Turkey’s Constitution Reconciliation Commission was presented with a new series of articles for inclusion in the country’s new constitution. Led by the Turkish Green Party, the articles were submitted by the Initiative […]