Middle East - Anthony Ham [87]
Elsewhere in Turkey, both the Black Sea and Mediterranean coasts cower beneath towering peaks, before giving way to the vast, high plateau of rolling steppe and mountain ranges of Central Anatolia.
In Lebanon, the Mt Lebanon Range forms the backbone of the country and towers over the Mediterranean. The range rises steeply with a dramatic set of peaks and ridges; the highest peak, Qornet as-Sawda, southeast of Tripoli, reaches over 3000m. South of Beirut are the beautiful Chouf Mountains. To the east the Mt Lebanon Range gives way steeply to the Bekaa Valley, which in turn yields to the Anti-Lebanon Range, a sheer arid massif averaging 2000m in height, which forms a natural border with Syria. Lebanon’s mountains peter out to the north, crossing the frontier with Syria, whose Mediterranean coast is separated from the rest of the country by the Jebel Ansariyya.
Rivers
It’s difficult to overestimate the significance of the rivers that flow into and through the Middle East. The Nile, which runs for 6695km, 22% of it in Egypt, is the longest river on earth and along its banks flourished the glorious civilisation of ancient Egypt. Other Middle Eastern rivers resonate just as strongly with legends and empires past. According to the Bible, the Euphrates and Tigris are among the four rivers that flowed into the Garden of Eden and they would later provide the means for the cradle of civilisation in Mesopotamia. The Jordan River, the lowest river on earth, also features prominently in biblical texts.
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Natural Selections: A Year of Egypt’s Wildlife, written and illustrated by Richard Hoath and published locally by the American University in Cairo Press, is a passionate account of the creatures that make Egypt their home.
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But the significance of these rivers is anything but old news. Even today, they provide the lifeblood for the people of Egypt (90% of whose population lives along the Nile), Israel and Palestinian Territories, Iraq, Jordan and eastern Syria, many of whom cling to the riverbanks for life support. Were it not for the rivers that run through these lands – hence providing a water source and narrow fertile agricultural zones close to the riverbanks – it’s difficult to see how these regions could support life at all.
For more information on the Euphrates River, turn to the boxed text, Click here.
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WILDLIFE
Animals
Occupying the junction of three natural zones, the Middle East was once a sanctuary for an amazing variety of mammals. Hardly any are left. The list of species driven to extinction by hunting and other consequences of human encroachment – among them, cheetahs, lions and Nile crocodiles – tells in microcosm the story of the irreparable damage that humankind has wrought upon the Middle Eastern environment. If you see anything more exciting than domesticated camels, donkeys and water buffaloes, you’ll belong to a very small group of lucky Middle Eastern travellers. To make matters worse, despite a growing awareness of what has been lost, official government policies to protect wildlife are as rare as many of the animals.
There are exceptions to this otherwise gloomy outlook. The most famous of these is the campaign to save the Arabian oryx (see the boxed text, opposite), while the Israeli initiative known as Hai Bar (literally ‘wildlife’) has also provided a small beacon of hope.
Begun more than 40 years ago, Israel’s Hai Bar program set itself the most ambitious of aims: to reintroduce animals that roamed the Holy Land during biblical times by collecting a small pool of rare animals, breeding them, then reintroducing them to the wild. As a result, the wild ass, beloved by the Prophet Isaiah, has turned the corner and may soon be off the endangered list. But the story of the Persian fallow deer is the one that really captured the