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.
It can get windy over there in Egypt. Now, Egypt plans on making renewable energy 20% of its national energy goals. The Egyptian government has announced plans to generate 1,000 megawatts of wind power this year. Speaking at the energy forum for the Middle East and North Africa 2010, Egypt’s Electricity Minister Hassan Younis said […]
African nations fight over who lays claim to the Nile. Egypt is fighting back. Image via Michael JG It is water. Water for all. At least this is the argument that upstream countries along the Nile River have been saying for years, but Egypt continues to refuse to renegotiate a colonial-era treaty that would allocate […]
Ancient Egyptians built temples to the Sun God Ra. Time for this African nation to reclaim its glory and time in the sun, with solar energy deal? Image via mrs_logic Maybe it’s the product of the recent MENASOL solar conference in Cairo that Green Prophet attended. Now, Bloomberg news is reporting that Spain’s largest solar-thermal […]
The tragedy of it all- why should they have to suffer? A Russian oil dump in Egypt raises more red flags in Middle East about oil spills and drilling practices. The giant Gulf of Mexco oil spill is now more than two weeks old and although intensive efforts are being made to “cap” the well, […]
Dr. Antoine Bittar, one of the solar experts who spoke at MENASOL. (Photo by author.) While the previous MENASOL speaker profiled here (Nasser Majali) is a relative newcomer to the field of solar energy, Dr. Antoine Bittar, the Engineering Director for Solar Power at RES Mediterranean, is a leading expert in this field. For the […]
Some 250 people participated in the MENASOL conference in Cairo this week. Courtesy image. The 2nd annual MENASOL solar energy conference on the development and finance of utility-scale solar projects in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) opened Tuesday in Cairo. Approximately 250 people from around the world gathered for the two-day conference. This […]
From garbage dump to municipal park. The impressions of Alexandria I shared in a recent post were largely negative, so here I’ll present a happier picture: a green oasis in Cairo built upon a former garbage dump. The photos are mine; the background information comes mainly from touregypt.net.
Despite its impressive shoreline, Alexandria – the self-proclaimed “Capital of Arab Tourism” – seems to be a city in decline. (Hint: watch out pedestrians). When the Green Prophet’s editor heard I’d be stopping in Alexandria en route to the MENASOL solar energy conference in Cairo next week, she asked (implored) me to write a post from […]
From leaps in the bronze age to massive droughts that wiped out cities, civilizations we learn from history, depend on water. We need to protect our life sustaining resources now. An Akkad sculpture from Iraq. Over the course of history, numerous civilizations have peaked and then gradually fettered out or even disappeared abruptly. In many […]
Solar field at Kuraymat, Egypt is now fully assembled. Image via changents.com Ra, the sun god of the ancient Egyptians, would be proud: Egypt’s first large-scale solar thermal facility is nearing completion. A parabolic trough solar field, incorporating nearly 2,000 collector units and covering 130,000 square meters, has been installed at the Kuraymat project site, […]
Israel holds Earth Hour a little later than the rest of the world, but just in time for Earth Day. Stubborn as always, Israel insists on doing things a little differently. The official international date for Earth Day, the worldwide energy saving campaign, was on March 27th and many other Middle Eastern countries – such […]
Drugs can cause environmental devastation. Some smokers say it connects them to life, and nature. On the streets of Cairo, a hash shortage is generating some conspiracy theories. Photo via torbenh It may be an attempt to maintain stability while the ailing president was abroad, or a pre-election clampdown on crime. But whatever the conspirators […]
The Siwa Oasis is becoming a hot eco-tourism spot in Egypt, away from the glam of 5 star hotels. Alexander the Great loved the spot. While high-end, luxury travel continues to suffer somewhat, not all segments of Egypt’s tourism sector are declining. Eco-friendly destinations are continuing to burgeon. On the Red Sea coast are dozens […]
The Sphinx and the Great Pyramids of Giza shut off their lights for one hour on Saturday evening in Egypt to mark Earth Hour, a global protest for climate change initiatives. The whole world sat in darkness for one hour as an attempt to bring awareness to the growing concerns facing the planet in terms […]
[image via: robert_hornung] Sharm el-Sheikh, in the Sinai region of Egypt, has been a thriving tourist location for decades due to its incredible beaches and vast coral reefs. Its great attraction to tourists has also been its downfall, however. The reefs are currently under threat due to the dust caused by erosion. With tourism accounting […]