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.
Middle East city heads want to make their cities more sustainable. The Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region is 60 percent urbanized compared to the global average of 52 percent and is home to one of the world’s most rapidly expanding populations. By 2030, a 45 percent increase of MENA’s urban population will add […]
Ahmed Abdel Azim and his team at Suez Canal University advance research in mycology (fungi) Its not the first time that Green Prophet covers stories on how Egyptian scientists are applying science to public policy. In 2011 Azza Abdel Hamid Faiad, winner of the European Union Contest for Young Scientists, found a new way of turning […]
Mediterranean sharks risk extinction while “serious implications” feared for marine ecosystems and beyond. Accidental catches and sharks for fin soup are to blame Shark populations in the Mediterranean and Black Sea have dropped dramatically over the last two centuries and now risk extinction, with serious implications for the region’s entire marine ecosystem and food chains, […]
Water scarcity has already become a fact of daily life for Egyptians The world’s driest region, the Middle East* and North Africa (MENA), is getting drier at an alarming rate. And yet, despite massive population growth (the Middle East’s population grew 61 percent from 1990 to 2010 to 205 million people) predictions of so-called “water […]
UCLA and Egyptian scientist accidentally find a new way to bottle stored energy. This missing link for solar energy, hydro and electric cars could be a fast, tiny, biodegradable battery Penicillin, Teflon, microwave ovens and superglue were all discovered by accident. And now graphene super-capacitors might be the most important accidental discovery of our time […]
Besides the really terrible ew factor, the consequences for the environment are as equally yuck: the Egyptian army is looking to stall and stop Gazan smugglers from digging tunnels from the Gaza Strip to Egypt’s Sinai have found a new and dirty way to flush out smugglers: they are pouring raw sewage into the underground tunnels. Leaders […]
Like in biblical times locust swarms threaten Egyptian crops. Scattered pockets of locusts in southern Egypt and northern Sudan are a threat to agricultural land, warns the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). Countries along the Red Sea should remain on “high alert and make every effort to find and treat all infestations”, it says. […]
Vernon Hugh Bowman, farmer vs Monsanto, billion dollar seed and biotech company. It sounds like something from a book about the perils of the future, a future that is strangely today reality: The seed-engineering company Monsanto genetically engineers seeds to have desirable traits that make them hearty or the plants resistant to the effects of herbicides […]
R2D2 – Tunisia’s landscape and subterranean dwellings have made it ideal for filming our Star Wars movies! When the Star Wars films began they chose Turkey and its fairy chimneys for the futuristic backdrop of the science fiction films. Later films were shot in Tunisia and some fans have even gone so far as to […]
Joseph’s lungs didn’t like the return to polluted Cairo. It caused a dangerous bout of asthma. Returning to the city I have lived for more than a decade this January, Cairo, I was definitely not expecting to end up at the doctor’s office with days of near constant asthma problems. After 10 years, one would think […]
Taking irrigated water from the Nile, the Toshka pumping station in upper Egypt was supposed to help combat encroaching desert Political tension in Egypt in the aftermath of the revolution which began nearly two years ago, has hit tourism, led to high food prices, and caused an economic slowdown which is raising food security concerns. […]
The year in retrospect has been a positive one. Despite civil unrest, dangerous regimes, and appalling environmental crimes and neglect, there are good green things afoot for the Middle East. Today we recap some of our green leaders of 2012, the people of the Middle East and for the Middle East who have made 2012, […]
Afghanistan, Iraq, North Korea, Myanmar and Yemen are still using leaded gasoline and many others have lead contaminated plumbing, soil, paint and household products. How can we reduce the world’s crime rate, particularly the rate of violent crime? When the crime rate rises or a horrific crime takes place, people are quick to find blame […]
With air pollution 100x worse than NYC the news doesn’t look good for 2013 even though Cairo taxis were offered free natural gas tanks. Two years ago when the Egyptian government began fully implementing taxis run on natural gas, there was much praise and fanfare. Air pollution was at monumental levels in the Egyptian capital […]
The Medicinal Plants Association in Egypt helps preserve biodiversity and is one of the 25 winners of the Equator Prize 2012. Policy making within the realm of “development” is often burdened by an excessively westernized design resulting in unintended consequences on the welfare of local populations. For example, a previous Green Prophet article “Morocco’s Berbers […]