Egypt, a country where pharaohs once commanded the Nile and cats enjoyed diplomatic immunity, is now wrestling with modern environmental challenges that no ancient scribe could have predicted. The nation faces a complex tangle of issues: rapid urbanization, shrinking green spaces, plastic waste that seems to multiply like desert mirages, and the slow but steady warming of the Mediterranean and Red Sea. Add to that the annual drama of the Nile — too much water, too little water, or water carrying things that nobody wants to swim with — and you have a country navigating a delicate ecological tightrope.
But Egypt isn’t just struggling; it’s also innovating. And some of its most creative solutions come not from ministries but from civil society. Nature Conservation Egypt is one of the country’s leading environmental NGOs, championing bird protection, wetland conservation, and the survival of migratory species that treat Egypt like an airport lounge on their way between continents. Their fieldwork in places like Lake Qarun and the Red Sea wetlands has quietly shaped policy for years.
Then there’s HEPCA — the Hurghada Environmental Protection and Conservation Association — a powerhouse NGO guarding the Red Sea’s coral reefs from overfishing, careless tourism, and the occasional boat captain who mistakes a reef for a parking spot. HEPCA’s mooring buoy system has become a regional model, proving that even popular tourist hubs can protect biodiversity when the rules are clear and the buoys are bright blue.
New sustainability movements are popping up too: youth-led recycling initiatives in Cairo, clean-energy startups in Alexandria, gardens and hydroponics farms on rooftops and Nile cleanup campaigns that feel half environmental crusade, half street festival. Egypt’s ambitious Benban Solar Park, one of the largest in the world, shows what national-scale renewable energy can look like when the sun cooperates — and in Egypt, it usually does. Almost every day is a beach day.
BenBan Solar Park from above. The Benban Solar Park has a total installed capacity of 1.65 gigawatts (GW). It’s one of the largest solar installations in the world and a major pillar of Egypt’s renewable-energy strategy.
Eco-challenges remain big, but the momentum is growing. In true Egyptian style, progress arrives with a mix of determination, improvisation, and just enough humor to survive the heat.
Hussein Farag’s home made version of a solar water heater is not as sophisticated as these made in Israel, but it’s a heck of a lot cheaper. Although solar water heaters are now becoming popular in Egypt, pay the equivalent of US $ 600 or more to purchase them is still out of reach to […]
Shark Fin Soup: a delicacy or a crime? Yemeni fisherman take advantage of Egypt’s protection laws and kill sharks for fins in Red Sea for Japanese soup.[image via jmurawski] With fragile ecosystems overrun by tourism, waste piling high on Cairo’s streets, and an oil spill initially covered up by authorities, the recent dispatch about Yemeni […]
Wait, what? Whales in the desert? Fossils of earliest suborder of now extinct whale sheds new light on evolution. Even though human population expansion and over-exploitation of natural resources has accelerated the rate at which climatic change wreaks havoc, nature has always been in flux. Few things drive this concept home more concretely than a […]
Education puts Cairo one step towards getting rid of its nemesis: solid waste. Within a 3 minute walk down Cairo’s streets, an environmentalist is bound to have an apoplectic fit: litter lies everywhere. Tiny trash bins – rare jewels – overflow with containers and water (read more about Cairo’s tap water) bottles that will live […]
Prior to the installation of an asphalt highway connecting the once peaceful region of Bahariya to Cairo, the oasis was mostly hidden from the greater world. Then archaeologists re-discovered the Valley of the Golden Mummies and tourism in Egypt soared, generating valuable income for the local community. However, the influx also comes with a considerable environmental cost.
A Maridive rescue boat. It’s as though oil drilling has reached a holding pattern off the Red Sea coast of Egypt as the media, investors, drilling companies, governments and NGOs work to establish or even decide on the cause of the oil spill off the coast of Egypt’s Red Sea last week. Some say the […]
The plot thickens: The Egypt Government says Red Sea oil spill is not a rig spill. The warmer weather has just released old oil, now surfacing. Or it’s come from passing tanker. Image via wikipedia BP’s oil spill is a disaster with no end in sight. It only illuminates the alleged Red Sea oil spill, […]
It’s hard to think green, when you’re thinking about your next dinner. A UN story documents the lack of protein in Egyptian children, and that a whopping 16% of all kids living there are malnourished. For seven-year-old Ahmed Yasser, it is normal to have just a crust of bread to munch on throughout the afternoon […]
Green Prophet is in touch with HEPCA, the eco group in Egypt, working on cleaning up and containing the oil spill in the Red Sea that started last week. We hope to bring you more updates by the end of the day. Meanwhile, the eco group in the region of the spill – the Hurghada […]
Like the BP oil spill disaster that’s gripping the world, the delicate eco-system of the Red Sea, home to some of the most important coral reefs of the world, may be in peril. Off the coast of Egypt late last week in the Red Sea, an oil spill was reported – one which the government […]
The Red Sea oil spill off Hurghada Coast is said to be contained, but it’s still leaking off the coast of Egypt, environmental activists say. Tourists are cancelling Red Sea holidays. With all the attention focused on the still spewing oil platform leak in the Gulf of Mexico, who would be paying attention to another oil […]
With an abundant Nile flowing through it, people in Cairo wonder about industrial pollution dumping affecting their health, and future. A common question asked by visitors to Cairo is “can I drink the tap water?” Many Cairenes have no problems with drinking the water. The Nile River is Cairo’s main source of water and begins […]
Not yet into the organic food craze of America, the thin craze is taking over the Middle East as sedentary women pop pills to make them thin. Image via hamed Obesity is on the rise in the Middle East. Many Arabs in the Gulf are now overweight after oil wealth has fueled a sedentary lifestyle […]
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ffl4MMGLLPk&feature=related[/youtube] This light-hearted clip bears a serious warning of what Egypt might look like in 2150. Climate change threatens to drastically reduce Egypt’s agricultural production and water supplies, the head of the Egyptian Environmental Affairs Agency’s climate change unit warned in an interview with Reuters. El Sayed Sabry also noted that key tourist destinations are at […]
A solar hot water heater is a cheap way to collect endless hot water, from the sun. What are you waiting for? Image via Beluga. They are relatively cheap units to install and can provide almost endless supplies of free hot water. Like Israel discovered decades ago, people in Cairo are now onto using energy […]