Ramblings from the Desert

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Sunday 21st September

When you drive from the Emirate of Dubai into the Emirate of Abu Dhabi there is a marked difference in what you see. Abu Dhabi is very green thanks to the last sheikh.The late Sheikh Zayed Bin Sultan Al Nahyan learning that 15,000 years ago the Arabian Peninsula was a very different place to that we see now with thick forests and very green but after it was exposed to a long spell of drought the forests died and were buried giving the oil that they have today-decided to retun the greenery to Abu Dhabi and tied to hold the encroaching desert back.The sands were drifting onto the farms and plantations - he developed extensive projects to level the dunes and sand hills and cover surface areas with mud. he set up green belts around farms to protect them against the wind and to stabilise the soil.He then planted forests round the city borders to protect them from sand storms which also restricted the humidity ratio. There is a water resources management system in Al Ain using both the traditional aflaj or underground canal system of irrigation and modern technology . He spent a fortune on looking into conserving water and boosting ground water reserves. Many dams were erected and people were encouraged to grow salt tolerant plants- ian and I passed the research stations where they are still working on this- so that farm land may be retained and the desert held back.
In the 1960s they started the planting along the central reservation of the roads and along the sides of the main road- more than 100 million trees have been planted within the UAE .sea water is used to water them
I was so impressed with the greeness of Al Ain which has 75 forests- there are also many wild life reserves protecting the gazelle and encouraging the breeding of the Arabian oryx at Al Ain zoo- there were only 4 left by the 1960s.

I am very impressed with Abu Dhabi - I just wish the UAE would also make more use of solar power so that they could use thir biggest enemy to good use- the buildings here just cry out for solar panels- it seems mad to me that buildings in the North of Scotland are being built with solar panels but I have seen none here. There are also strong winds here at times so I am sure more could be made of wind power. Most of the land in the Emirates is at sea level so if as predicted sea levels rise with global warming huge tracts of the land here would disappear under the sea.

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