Egypt plans to lease 25,000 hectares of agricultural land to Arab investors. Agriculture minister Ayman Abu Hadid made the announcement in Tunis recently. Egypt is hoping that sustainable farmers will apply.
A panel of judges at the NanoIsrael 2014 conference voted Volta’s carbon nanotube (CNT) battery as Nano product of the year. Read more for an explanation of what this means and why nanotechnology may soon be a household word.
A new one-day contest has attracted birding experts from around the world to southern Israel where they compete to record the highest number of species migrating through the Great Rift Valley along the Africa Eurasia Flyway. Called Champions of the Flyway, the competition also raised money to combat illegal hunting in countries along the migratory […]
It’s Earth Hour this weekend, which means you have the chance to join millions of people around the globe in a united effort to consume less energy.
A new golf course is being built in the shadow of the Egyptian pyramids, the plans for its fairways and greens were recently unveiled by Thomson Perrett & Lobb, an architectural firm specializing in course design. It’s not the first links in Cairo, nor the first course near the Cheops, but Insha’allah that Egyptian environmentalists […]
On the southern tip of the Sinai Peninsula, tucked in the dusty foothills of an Egyptian mountain range, sit hundreds of seats in an abandoned outdoor movie theater. The arrangement is eerie, like a long-ago movie set awaiting Fellini to shout, “Azion!”
When all else fails, run to wealthy Saudi Arabia. That seems to be the prevailing thought among Egyptian officials at a loss to resolve the ongoing dispute with Ethiopia over Nile water rights.
To many Egyptians, the desert is a hostile place: water is scarce, terror cells hide in its vast expanse, or land mines make crossing them a death trap. But the Desert Breath land art project near Hurghada on the Red Sea coast reminds us that Egypt, despite its many troubles, is a place of extraordinary beauty.
El Gouna, a resort city on Egypt’s Red Sea Riviera, is set to become the first carbon-neutral city in that nation, in Africa, and likely the entire Middle East North Africa (MENA) region. Masdar City, in continuing development in Abu Dhabi, initially targeted zero-carbon status, but has yet to hit that goal.
“I’m alive.” I’ve made that call, maybe you have too. That surreal statement instantly erases panic in whomever’s on the other end of the line. It reconstructs a momentarily unglued world.
Colombia and Egypt share at least one unfortunate plague: land mines. Nearly 20 percent of the world’s land mines are strewn throughout Egypt’s western desert and the Sinai peninsula, while in Colombia, they have killed 2,000 people over the last two decades. Lemur Studio designed a life-saving solution – SaveOneLife.
Looking for some good reads about the environment and the Middle East? Then click yourself into the University of California Press (UCP) e-books collection (link here) offering free access to hundreds of books published by UCP and other academic presses.
Jordan is cleaning up its act, at least in terms of laundry detergent, with a project entitled Concentrate for the Environment. The voluntary, industry-led initiative aims to reduce the negative environmental impact of powdered laundry soap. Seems the soap industry excels at greenwashing; this looks like corporate cost-shaving spun into environmental (fool’s) gold.
Egypt offers more to desert tourists than camels: In the ancient land of the Pharaohs, desert-dwelling invertebrates have often been part of Egyptian folklore, including scarab or dung beetles which are known to navigate by the stars. Now spiders join the story.
At last, Dayma is offering the kind of eco-tour we’ve long dreamed of. The same people who showed students what scorpions and camels can teach us about sustainable design have now developed two new, affordable tours that put nature at the heart of the Egyptian experience.