The ‘historical imagery’ function on google earth is particularly helpful in tracking changes to landscapes since about the turn of the millennium when satellite imagery became commonly available.

For instance, it has allowed me to estimate that the army of earth-moving vehicles that I saw at work have been excavating this site west of Abu Dhabi for almost a decade. The area of the development extends to roughly 39 square miles. The carbon footprint of this project defies belief.

The landscape was originally a large tidal sabkha plain. The developers had to first construct a sea barrier around the whole area, allowing the diggers to move in and lower the ground level.

A network of deep channels was created and then flooded through pipes before the removal of the sea barrier, allowing the area to become tidal again. The channels allow a deeper penetration inland of the high tide and make the whole ‘swamp’ navigable.

Related: Massive concrete amphitheater lies disused outside of Dubai

The process is currently being repeated on further areas, and the waste created by the excavations is being laid over the adjacent sabkha plain, raising the ground level and, presumably, creating an area suitable for future development.

‘Beds’ created by the channels have been planted with mangrove shoots, although with limited success so far. It is the stated aim of the Environment Agency to expand the Emirate’s mangrove forests. In fact, at least two million mangroves are slated to be planted along the coast by the end of this year.

Mangroves are known to store carbon efficiently and provide rich environments for wildlife. Many natural mangrove areas have been impacted upon by development around Abu Dhabi island.

I find tragedy in many aspects of this project: the destruction of a natural landscape, the excruciating regularity of the channel grid system and, of course, the energy consumed in order to create it, to name but a few.

Maybe it will eventually become a valuable environmental asset. But even if it does, it will always be there to stand testament to man’s fossil-fueled subjugation of nature.

Please see for yourself the breath-taking scale of this project on google earth at  24° 6’26.77″N  53°57’0.02″E

Note from the editor: this photograph is part of a series called “Consumption” that seeks to document consumerism’s impact on the environment. From resource extraction and commodity production all the way down the supply chain to retail stores and waste processing facilities, Richard artfully examines what nature has come to mean in a world that depends on buying stuff. 

The post Google Earth reveals 10-year impact of 39 square mile desert mangrove project appeared first on Green Prophet.

Exactly what will make the Mohammed VI Green City so green has yet to be established, though plans are underway to develop a 4km, 80 hectare corridor between this new development and Benguerir that will be planted with 50,000 trees.

Morocco’s press agency MAP reports that the megaproject will include “convenient infrastructure and an ecological space,” and will cater to the well-being, diversity and cultural and social welfare of its inhabitants.

The university will be built in two phases, according to MAP, and will include facilities for a wide range of programs crucial to the development of a healthy urban development. These include an engineering and industrial management program, green technologies and town planning, as well as sustainable development and architecture.

“This educational facility rests on different fundamentals including education, research and development, transfer of technologies, the adoption of innovative and promising projects as well as the proximity with the corporate world,” MAP reports.

Partnerships with leading engineering and science institutions in France and the United States, namely Ecole des Mines de Paris and MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology), lend further legitimacy to the university.

To this end, the King entered into two important agreements. The first is with the Ministry of Higher Education and Office Chérifien des Phosphates (OCP), which signals a budding relationship between the private education sector and what some activists caution is an unsustainable industry, and an additional agreement that outlines a working agreement between the Ecole des Mines de Paris and the OCP.

Whilst very few details have been published about the “Green City’s” specific attributes, such as what material will be used to construct the buildings and what kind of energy will be used, the project sounds much like another so-called “eco-city” in the Middle East, namely Masdar City.

Image of Morocco’s King Mohammed VI via About Middle East

The post Morocco is Building a Mega “Green City” Named After King Mohammed VI appeared first on Green Prophet.

Ten years ago, Turkish government authorities decided to transform an abandoned copper mine in northeastern Turkey into the biggest landfill in the eastern Black Sea region. Despite promises that the waste would be carefully contained, it began leaching into the surrounding soil, water, and air almost immediately. From the beginning, the nearby fishing and tea-cultivating village of Çamburnu has mounted a strong opposition to the development.

Since it began to be filled, pervading the air with a terrible stench and turning local streams brown and foamy, the locals have grown more desperate.

At stake is not only their pristine environment — the pure air, verdant forests, and bountiful rivers of the lush Black Sea mountains — but the very livelihood of the town. Çamburnu’s economy is based on exporting tea and fish to the rest of the country. Spoil those resources, and the village’s 1,7000 residents are out of work.

While the village’s mayor and lawyers filed suits against the dump, locals argued with the dump overseer, blocked bulldozers’ access to it, and tried to bring the situation to the attention of their detached provincial governor. They pointed out that the canvas lining was clearly leaking, that the region’s torrential rains periodically overflowed the dump, and that a wall supposed to hold in the rubbish had fallen down.

Most scenes in the film feature spirited villagers squaring off against government officials or dump workers. In one scene, a spunky older woman confronts an uncomfortable official about the dump, shouting, “I don’t pray for forgiveness from my sins anymore, I just pray that Allah saves us from the garbage!”

Notable examples of opposition movements in Turkey include the 10,000 people who protested a coal-fired power plant in Gerze last November, the movement to prevent the park in Istanbul’s main square from being built over, and the deforestation documentation project led by Turkey’s “environmental grandfather”, Hayrettin Karaca, which may send him to prison.

Window into Black Sea life

Polluting Paradise is more than just an environmental documentary. Several segments of the film draw away from the depressing effects of the dump to snapshot everyday life in the Turkish Black Sea region.

One fascinating sequence shows the process of manufacturing tea, from its harvesting in the field to the Rube-Goldberg-like apparatus that cleans, shreds, dries and packages it. Another scene follows a farmer as he pauses from his work in the fields, runs down to the mosque, and sings the call to prayer through a microphone plugged into the wall.

Less bucolic aspects of life in Çamburnu are also explored. Like most small Turkish towns, the village’s population is dwindling as more young people move to bigger cities for education and work. Akin traces this thread through interviews with several teenage residents of the village. And a hint of the patriarchal system that still dominates rural Turkish culture comes through when the women laughingly explain that they do most of the harvesting work because their men “claim a right to be lazy.”

The film’s biggest weakness is its over-reliance on dramatic scenes and effects — panning shots of the landfill as sinister music swells in the background, shouting matches between villagers and officials — and its patchy explanation of the legal battle against the dump.

It isn’t clear which office in Turkey’s central government authorized the dump in the first place, or who has the power to close it now. The film ends with the mayor’s abrupt declaration that they have lost all the lawsuits they filed. In a country with as many local environmental movements as Turkey, the finer points of Çamburnu’s deserve to be hammered out.

Some scenes, particularly those involving children, also feel a bit staged — as though the kids are parroting lines or retorts about the plant that they have been taught.

A personal connection

Akin’s father’s family is from Çamburnu, but he first came to the region in 2007 while shooting Edge of Heaven.

The story Akin stumbled upon is just one of many environmentally disastrous developments occurring around Turkey, promoted by private corporations and central government but opposed by locals who actually have to live with the consequences.

Despite its flaws, Polluting Paradise is a welcome contribution to Turkey’s sparse history of environmental documentaries. Hopefully it will inspire other filmmakers to return to their hometowns and check in on the welfare of the local environment. It may be more threatened than they think.

Read more about local environmental movements in Turkey:

As He Battles Lawsuit, Grandfather of Turkish Environmental Movement Receives Right Livelihood Award
Istanbul’s Main Square To Become Lifeless And Isolated In New Urban Plan, Opponents Warn
10,000 Turks Gather To Protest Coal-Fired Power Plant
“Anatola Won’t Be Blackened” Declare Turkish Anti-Fossil Fuel Groups

The post Polluting Paradise Documentary Follows Turkish Village’s Battle Against Invading Garbage appeared first on Green Prophet.

Hoda Baraka from Almasry Alyoum was one of the first journalists to point out how unregulated development is impacting on the timeless Siwa Oasis near Libya, and recently visited a new eco-village in Upper Egypt – an archaeologically-rich but neglected area south of Cairo. The New Hermopolis Eco Village founder and physician Mervat Nasser and architecture planner Yahia Shawkat both expressed hope during her visit that projects like this could benefit from the revolution – but only if government alters its mass tourism model. We are not so sure.

A revival of the unknown Upper Egypt

Just 211 miles south of Cairo, The New Hermopolis Eco-Village named after the Greek Messenger of the Gods Hermes aims to draw new awareness to the region’s intellectual history. Upper Egypt has suffered from two decades of deliberate repression by the Mubarak regime, following the rise of radical Islamic factions, according to Almasry Alyoum.

The village is comprised of 16 rooms made of limestone that can accommodate up to 52 visitors; revenue from the solar-powered venture will support development projects in the local community, which is situated very close to the Tuna al-Gebel antiquities.

Although Nasser is striving to create a framework that supports a new model of sustainable tourism, both she and Shawkat are realistic that the government has to get involved if this initiative has any hope of genuine success.

Government’s role in sustainable tourism

Shawkat told Baraka:

First, they [the government] must put in place the necessary regulations serving as guidelines for those wanting to undertake such initiatives. Consequently, they are responsible for ensuring that the tourism industry, once introduced in the region, does not grow at the expense of local communities.

Other substantial developments in the region also support a more eco-friendly approach to tourism, including the tranquil Desert Lodge in el-Qasr, suggesting that there exists a community-driven desire to move away from the model that carts bus loads of visitors to a select handful of increasingly ecologically-corrupted destinations.

But other indicators give us a less optimistic view of Egypt’s future.

The ugly side of reality

Tourism traffic alone the Sinai peninsula has seriously eroded the once-beautiful beaches and coral reefs, and wildlife has taken a serious beating. Thanks to efforts by Hurghada Environmental Protection and Conservation Agency (HEPCA), a dolphin sanctuary was recently established by the Red Sea Governorate, but a new report shows that since the revolution, failure to monitor illegal poaching has put Red Sea sharks sold for fins at risk of extinction.

Establishing the infrastructure for sustainable development and tourism takes time – a process we support wholeheartedly. But we worry that given the incredible financial losses that Egypt has already sustained in the last year, high-income projects will take precedence. Even so, the last year has proven that people are powerful. Faith in grassroots activism and action along with a healthy dose of perseverance will usher in a new Egypt.

:: Almasry Alyoum

image by Hoda Baraka

More on Eco-Tourism in Egypt:

Post-Revolution Development in Egypt Destroys Popular Red Sea Dive Spot

Romantic Desert Lodge in Egypt Offers Fresh Eggs and Sanity

PHOTOS: Green Prophet’s Whirlwind Tour of the Siwa Oasis

The post Is Troubled Egypt Ripe Enough For Eco-Tourism? appeared first on Green Prophet.

An ingenious technology installed in 20 countries around the world has enormous potential not only to regenerate ailing coral reefs but improve their resilience as well!

Coral reefs throughout the world are in dire straits, which bodes badly for the world’s marine ecosystems. But a proven technology that has been floating around for two decades can revive even the most bleached and poorly reefs in a matter of years.

First conceived by German architect and marine scientist Wolf Hilbertz, Biorock technology delivered via a metal cage called a “crab” creates a spontaneous accumulation of limestone, which in turn encourages coral growth. A similar idea called Econcrete made in Tel Aviv creates new reef growth.

It only takes a tiny amount of electricity to create life-generating mineral deposits

A tiny amount of electricity derived from solar panels is delivered to the metal crab cages, which then promotes an accumulation of life-sustaining limestone. Hilbertz originally tested this Biorock technology in the southern American state Louisiana in order to develop a self-sustaining building material. Not only was the experiment successful, but the inventor also discovered that oysters and corals colonized the newly formed limestone domes.

Remarkably, Discovery News reports that the electrolysis not only restores beleaguered reefs but actually improves their resistance to environmental factors that caused their demise in the first place, including bleaching that results from warmer and more acidic water.

If all of this sounds just a little bit too good to be true, we’re happy to report that for once it’s not! An Australian diver Rani Morrow-Wuigk learned about Biorock technology and decided to use her own money and support from the Taman Sari resort in Pemuteran Bay off Bali’s north coast to restore reefs that had all but disappeared. Already, after just 11 years, 60 cages spread over two marine hectares have completely regenerated the reef.

Coral doing better than before

“Now we’ve got a better coral garden than we used to have,” said Rani. Even the local fishermen who worried about their job security are seeing the ripple effects of a newly colorful and thriving reef system which is luring tourists back to the bay.

Efforts to improve the state of coral reefs in the Red Sea and the Gulf are commendable but probably too slow to make a difference in the face of fast-moving climate change. In Abu Dhabi, doughnut-sized disks developed by Dr. Mineo Okamoto from the Tokyo University of Marine Science and Technology (TUMAT) are being installed in the waters of Saadiyat Island and Al Dhabeiyah. They promote larvae growth but only at a rate of 1cm per year.

As development projects continue unabated, these fragile ecosystems in the Middle East will become increasingly degraded. It’s going to take a near miracle, or maybe Biorock technology, to bring them back to life.

More on coral reefs in the Middle East:

Rebuilding Abu Dhabi’s Coral Reefs One Disc at a Time

Monitoring Stations in the United Arab Emirates Show Stressed Out Coral

Coral Reefs Get Sexy To Cope With Global Warming

Will Coral Reefs At Aqaba Be Destroyed By Litter

The post Electrified Cages Revive Dead Coral Reefs appeared first on Green Prophet.

If you are among those who associate art with the rail-thin, woebegone people who produce it and not much else, then you might be surprised to learn about the power paint has to transform a community. Take a look at Asillah, a fortified town with a long, colorful history complete with pirates on Morocco’s Northwestern Atlantic coast. A skip over the environmentally-threatened Mediterranean Sea from Europe and only a short drive south of Tangiers, Asillah became completely overrun by trash about three decades ago and no one thought to do anything about it. That is until one boy who remembered a time before, when the town of now 35,000 residents was still spotless and tranquil, returned as a grown man from his UN travels to find his home town completely neglected. Now Asilah’s longstanding mayor, Mohamed Benaissa instantly turned to mural art, and the generous patronage of Gulf countries, to lovingly restore the former majesty of his childhood memories.

33 Years of Paint

By all accounts, it seems to have worked. For thirty-three years, Mayor Benaissa has invited international artists to paint the city’s ramparts as a way to raise funds to keep the town clean. This initiative is collected into the month-long Asillah Arts Festival that takes place every summer and features a different country each time. Last year the United Arab Emirates funded the festival, a gift that allowed them to then share information related to Masdar City and other environmental and social projects that have improved their own country.

This year, Kuwait’s Arab Fund for Economic and Social Development was a major benefactor of the festival. Unlike massive development projects funded by Dubai, these civic-minded gifts (and they are gifts, since neither Kuwait nor the UAE have received any kind of financial compensation from the even) are a means of sharing culture and ideas, a way for the Gulf to both help and influence Morocco’s development.

Making the most of not much

Benaissa explained to the BBC that Asillah has no resources save its residents’ cultural and imaginative abilities in order to keep the town going. So he invested in these skills by encouraging the most creative to paint murals on Asilah’s white walls. The best of them will remain part of the town’s historical character for years to come. He added that his “faith in [the residents] has paid off.”

A huge success that other cities throughout the country have emulated, the Asilah festival became Morocco’s very first non-government organization and has helped to open dialogue about broader issues as well. In addition to keeping beaches clean, the BBC notes that the festival addresses (obliquely or directly) immigration, economics, and other pressing political issues.

:: BBC

More environmental stories from Morocco:

Walking in the Shadow of a Moroccan Camel

A Side of Sewage with Dinner in Morocco

Morocco: Arab World Star Has a Dark Side

The post Colorful Murals are a Fortified Moroccan Town’s Environmental Meal-Ticket appeared first on Green Prophet.

Police violently repressed activists protesting the nearly irreversible damage done to the Middle East’s largest salt lake over the weekend. This image was taken of a protest earlier this year.

Like a chain of dominos, citizen protests are erupting everywhere: following the Tunisian and Egyptian revolutions catalyzed in part by skyrocketing food prices, political protests have swept throughout the Arab world. But it hasn’t stopped there, and not all battles are political.

In Jordan, ordinary people are protesting government plans to include nuclear power in its arsenal of energy sources, while in the United States, Bill McKibben and other well-respected community members, including Jim Hansen from NASA, have been arrested for marching against the Keystone XL Pipeline –  a carbon bomb that climatologists say would officially end the battle against climate change (humanity 0 vs. climate change 7 billion). But none of these latter environmental events has garnered such an extreme response as the Lake Orumiyeh protests in Iran, where bloggers report that people are being arrested, beaten, and in some cases tied to trees for protesting the slow death of the world’s second largest salt lake.

Dried up Mecca

In part because of drought and in part because of poorly managed dam construction and irrigation projects, Lake Orumiyeh or Urmia in Northwestern Iran has shrunk to roughly 60% of its original size. Once a mecca for flamingos and other wildlife, the dying lake now more closely resembles a dusty moonscape.

Residents in Azerbaijan that rely on the Ramsar protected site for their sustenance claim that Revolutionary Guards are responsible for shrinking lake levels and the subsequent rise in salinity and decrease in biodiversity. Global Voices claims that if Lake Urmia dries up completely, millions of people will have to settle elsewhere.

Authorities get dirty

Spurred on by these concerns, thousands of protestors spilled into the streets of Tabriz and Urmia last weekend in order to put pressure on the government to step up conservation efforts. But eyewitnesses report that protests quickly took an ominous turn.

According to one blogger, Urmuiscielli, policemen beat and arrested protestors, some of whom were tied to trees.

Although the police crackdown was censored in the mainstream Iranian press, Iran’s Independent Press picked up the story, and the blogosphere was populated by video footage and calls for other citizens to support Azeri activists and re-launch anti-regime demonstrations.

Crimes against humanity

If taken seriously, the increase of environmentally-themed disputes between citizens and their governments, even in the Middle East, could spur a whole new era of accountability measures. Protestors who show little willingness to compromise until real action is taken have the power to disrupt the smooth functioning of society to such an extent that governments (a la Egypt) will have no choice but to instill effect change.

And eventually, when environmental degradation is unequivocally linked to an increase in environmental refugees, green-minded lawmakers such as Polly Higgins, who has been campaigning the United Nations to make Ecocide a crime against humanity, will be better poised for success.

Of course, none of this will happen in Iran anytime soon given that country’s oppressive regime and appalling environmental record, even though these protests show an increasingly emboldened (or desperate?) populace.

:: Global Voices

More on Iranian Environmental Issues:

Saltier than the Dead Sea, Lake Orumiyeh is in Trouble

Iran Lacks Water Planning

Iran and Qatar Align to Help the Environment

The post Police Beat, Tie-Up, and Fire On Citizens Protesting Dying Ramsar Protected Lake in Iran appeared first on Green Prophet.