Middle East - Anthony Ham [93]
* * *
The Middle East is not alone in having greedily eyed the benefits of mass tourism and thumbed its nose at environmental sustainability. In Egypt, for example, some of the coastal resorts of the Red Sea and Sinai Peninsula are textbook cases of ill-conceived development that threaten to destroy the pristine natural beauty that drew tourists in the first place. Stretches of the Mediterranean coasts of Lebanon and Turkey aren’t far behind. Indeed, Greenpeace Mediterranean (www.greenpeace.org/Mediterranean) considers tourism to be one of the major causes of coastal destruction in Lebanon. It cites the dozens of yacht ports, ‘land reclamation’ projects and hotels that have been established illegally along the coast. Further afield, sites such as Petra are now considering limiting the number of visitors to lessen the human wear and tear on the monuments and surrounding landscape.
* * *
Africa & the Middle East: A Continental Overview of Environmental Issues, by Kevin Hillstrom, contains an excellent exploration of the Middle East’s environmental past and future, with a special focus on how human populations affect the environment.
* * *
The environmental impact of mass tourism on such places extends beyond the visible scarring that destroys the views. Destroyed coral reefs and the overexploitation of finite resources such as water are just a few of the environmental consequences for a place that’s being loved to death by tourists. Flow-on effects include rising prices for locals and local economies that are dependent upon tourism, leading to the abandonment of traditional industries (such as fishing) and ways of life.
But things are changing, albeit slowly. Private tourism operators and, to a lesser degree, the governments of the region are finally waking up to the fact that environmental sustainability is an important consideration for many travellers. Crucially, they’re also discovering that self-funding efforts to reverse environmental destruction and protect the last vestiges of wilderness will be amply rewarded by this new breed of traveller.
Consequently, ecotourism initiatives, though still very much in the minority, are appearing across the region. Israel and the Palestinian Territories is leading the way with Jordan also putting in an extremely strong showing thanks to the tireless work of the RSCN, whose projects in the Dana Nature Reserve (Click here) in particular are models for marrying tourism to environmental sustainability. Lebanon’s ecotourism projects are few but increasingly impressive, while Turkey is (very) slowly getting its act together. Egypt and ecotourism are taking a long time to come together with only a handful of private programs, although the work being done by the Hurghada Environmental Protection & Conservation Association to overturn decades of tourist-related damage to coral reefs is an initiative worth supporting. Syria and Iraq still lag far behind. Given that the latter has next to no tourists, Syria is undoubtedly bottom of the class, although its efforts to preserve its old cities are worthy of praise.
* * *
Water wars
It’s often said that the next great Middle Eastern war will be fought not over land but over water. There are already signs of tension. Syria and Iraq have protested to Turkey because it is building dams at the headwaters of the Tigris and Euphrates, while Egypt has threatened military action against Sudan or any other upstream country endangering its access to the waters of the Nile. But the greatest potential for a conflict based on water centres on Israel and the outstanding water disputes it has with all of its neighbours.
A third of Israel and the Palestinian Territories’ fresh water comes from rain, melting snow and natural spring water from the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights. The Sea of Galilee, known to Israelis as Lake Kinneret and a popular recreational area for Israelis, receives all of its water from the Golan’s run-off and from the Jordan