Help Sustainability Advisory Group hear the real deal about corporate responsibility and sustainability in the Middle East.

Environmental organizations are, of course, very important.  But often big change comes from the big companies who have big power.  Which is why it’s important not only to support green non-profits, but companies that are making environmentally-friendly strides as well.  In preparation for the 7th Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) Summit taking place in Dubai from May 30th – June 3rd 2010, Sustainability Advisory Group is conducting its second annual survey on executive views on corporate responsibility and sustainability in the Middle East.

The survey, which is now open, is following the success of last year’s survey – which was the largest Corporate Social Responsibility analysis ever conducted in the Middle East.

Maria Sillanpaa, the Founding Director of Sustainability Advisory Group, said about this year’s survey that:

“We are – once again – excited about this survey. Last year’s exercise was a great success and provided interesting and valuable insights into how Middle Eastern executives perceive their corporate responsibilities and how related issues were being managed within their organisations. This year, we especially look forward to being able to see how attitudes might have changed and CSR programmes evolved over the period.”

The CSR Summit taking place in Dubai at the end of the month is expected to approach Corporate Social Responsibility from the perspective of generating financial growth.  It is expected to be attended by leaders from Volkswagen, IKEA, Deutsche Bank, DLA Piper and Vodafone Egypt, among others.  Environmental topics to be discussed at the conference include: carbon as a means of achieving positive environmental contributions, and sustainable retailing with focus on the supply chain.

To complete the survey, click here.

Read more about corporate responsibility and the environment::

Etihad Airways Joins Qatar Airways in Bid to Cut Greenhouse Gas Emissions

Learn From spud! On How to Carbon Offset Your Business

Conference on Corporate Social and Environmental Responsibility in Tel Aviv

Tel Aviv highlights green buildings, spaces, construction techniques, and gardens during its annual “Houses from Within” weekend.

One spring weekend every year, for the past few years, Tel Aviv celebrates its architecture and invites the public to learn about the special structures that get to call the city their home.  These structures usually include architecturally significant public buildings, but also encompass architectural spaces that are generally closed to the public such as urban villas, interior designers’ lofts and open studios that open their doors and welcome the curious masses to view Houses from Within.  For the past couple of years the event has made a greater effort to highlight environmentally friendly and/or sustainable urban spaces, and this year there are more green events than ever before.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Looking for something to do this weekend?  Curious about green and the big city?  Here’s a list of some of the interesting green eco-urban and eco-architectural events happening this Friday and Saturday:

Sarah Racine Root Research Laboratory:  Professor Amram Eshel of Tel Aviv University will be offering open tours of the Botanical Gardens’ Root Research Laboratory, where roots are researched from below.  Friday 9am-3pm.

Maoz Aviv Community Garden: The garden, founded and tended to by local residents in the Maoz Aviv neighborhood, is an example of initiatives that promote community and eco-friendly living in the city.  Organic veggies and composting are part of the garden.  Friday 9am-12noon.

Making Items Out of Recycled Plastic Bags: This workshop, run by Liat Kadosh of Eccoukka, will teach kids how to make kites out of recycled plastic bags.  Suitable for children aged 3 and older.  Friday 2:30pm-6:30 pm.

Urban Sustainability in Tel Aviv: This tour, led by Knesset Member Nitzan Horowitz, will highlight issues of urban sustainability in Tel Aviv’s city center.  The tour will begin in Dizengoff Square and end in London Garden.  Saturday 11am.

The “City Tree” Ecological Apartment: An interesting and beautiful historic architectural structure in its own right, the City Tree ecological apartment on Bialik Street was renovated with completely eco-friendly methods.  The apartment also features, urban compost, a raw kitchen, greywater system, and a vegetable garden.  Friday 10am-3pm, Saturday 11am-5pm.

Ecological Planning of Rothschild Boulevard: Valentina Nelin, a sustainable architecture consultant, will lead this tour of Rothschild Boulevard and how it serves as a model for problems of ventilation light and shade.  Friday 3:30 pm.

For full information about each of the above events please click the relevant link, and for a full list of events (both green and otherwise) check out the Houses from Within website.

Houses from Within is taking place May 7-8 throughout Tel Aviv.  For more information, visit the event website.

Read more about Tel Aviv’s urban sustainability::

Is Sustainability in Tel Aviv an “Urban Legend”? New Film Challenges City Planners to Think Outside the Box

The Best Way to Keep Buildings Green is Not to Build New Ones

City Tree: A Green Oasis in the Middle of Tel Aviv

Israel holds Earth Hour a little later than the rest of the world, but just in time for Earth Day.

Stubborn as always, Israel insists on doing things a little differently.  The official international date for Earth Day, the worldwide energy saving campaign, was on March 27th and many other Middle Eastern countries – such as Egypt and Dubai – observed it already.  But Israel thought it would be better to observe Earth Hour a little later, on Earth Day, with a 14-city energy saving salute.

Today Israel will be observing Earth Hour for the third year in a row, with each city celebrating and saving energy in its own special way.  Check out what the following cities are doing, in synchronized order:

Tel Aviv: Tel Aviv already has its own Earth Hour tradition, in the form of a concert in Rabin Square that is powered by a team of cyclists and renewable energy (which sometimes comes in the form of upcycled falafel oil).  Lights out at 8pm.  Check out the details on the left.

Nes Ziona: Like the other cities observing Earth Hour, it’ll be lights out for Nes Ziona at 8pm.

Jerusalem: A few events will be going on in Jerusalem, including a family-oriented event on Sderot Mamila, a concert on the Old City walls after lights out at 8:10pm, and a street party on Shushan Street. Check out the poster below for more information.

Dimona: Like the other cities observing Earth Hour, it’ll be lights out for Dimona at 8:10pm.

Yavne: Yavne is turning Earth Hour into a day-long event, starting at 8am with a school-wide environmental education hour and ending with a lights-out hour starting at 8:10pm.

Haifa: Like the other cities observing Earth Hour, it’ll be lights out for Haifa at 8:10pm.

Kfar Saba: Kfar Saba will turn it’s lights off at 8:20pm, but before that a light-and-dark circus cabaret will be starting at 8pm.

Modi’in Makabim-Reut: Like the other cities observing Earth Hour, it’ll be lights out for Modi’in Makabim-Reut at 8:20pm.

Beer Sheva: Like the other cities observing Earth Hour, it’ll be lights out for Beer Sheva at 8:30pm.

Eilat: Like the other cities observing Earth Hour, it’ll be lights out for Eilat at 8:30pm.

Rishon Lezion: Like the other cities observing Earth Hour, it’ll be lights out for Rishon Lezion at 8:30pm.

Ashkelon: Like the other cities observing Earth Hour, it’ll be lights out for Ashkelon at 8:40pm.

Petach Tikva: Like the other cities observing Earth Hour, it’ll be lights out for Petach Tikva at 8:40pm.

Raanana: Like the other cities observing Earth Hour, it’ll be lights out for Raanana at 8:40pm.

For more information about Israel Earth Day 2010 events click here.

Read more about Earth Hour in Israel::

Earth Hour Competes With Football in Israel, Jordanians March With Candles

Tell Me It’s Hot, Tell Me It’s Cold: Tel Aviv Earth Hour Concert 2008

VIDEO: Shimon Peres Unplugs Jerusalem for Earth Day 2009

Free Concert Powered by Falafel Oil Brings Earth Hour and Earth Day to the Tel Aviv Masses

We greens of the Middle East have to take our manna from whence it comes – even if its from liberal economists: In a two-part series appearing on the editorial opinion pages of the April 13 and April 14, 2010 issues of the International Herald Tribune, Nobel Prize winning Princeton University economist Paul Krugman makes the case for potent economic measures aimed at limiting greenhouse gas emissions. 

In the April 14^th piece he writes: “Current predictions of global warming in the absence of action are just too close to the kinds of numbers associated with doomsday scenarios. It would be irresponsible – it’s tempting to say criminally irresponsible – not to step back from what could all too easily turn out to be the edge of a cliff.”

For those of us who have reached these conclusions without being Nobelists, Krugman’s words offer little insight. However, Krugman stands on the Olympian heights of liberal economics: He has served as a consultant to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, the United Nations, as well as to a number of countries including Portugal and the Philippines. He has been a member of the US President Council of Economic Advisors.

Paul Krugman’s commentary is another clarion call (see my post on Gore’s Clarion Call) by mainstream figures for action aimed at limiting devastating greenhouse gas emissions. Coming from someone who champions the system responsible for global environmental degradation, Krugman’s reasoning that “risk of catastrophe makes the most powerful case for strong climate policy,” is meaningful and is unlikely to be ignored by policy-makers whom he counsels.

In his articles Krugman considers the various contemporary liberal positions with special reference to Pigovian theory, a form of analysis named after an early 20^th century British economist Arthur Cecil Pigou. Pigou dealt with the question of externalities, phenomena like education (a positive externality) and pollution (a negative one) that are not directly tied to the economic production and productivity.

Briefly, Pigou believed that one should subsidize firms that promote positive externalities and tax those engaged in negative ones. In the contemporary context, this involves an attempt to stem greenhouse gas emissions by making those who produce them economically responsible through taxes, fees or the cap-and-trade system of carbon credit exchange.

Krugman reviews the work of contemporary economists such as Yale University’s William Nordhaus, Harvard’s Martin Weitzman and the London School of Economics’ Nicholas Stern who have written scholarly analysis on the economic impact of climate change and measures aimed at limiting it.

These economists argue that “[r]estricting emissions would slow economic growth – but not by much.”  In liberal economics-speak, the position suggests that containing emissions is cheaper than leaving the problem untreated. This is all the more the case given, as Weitzman believes (and Krugman with him)  that “[i]t’s the non-negligible probability of utter disaster that should dominate our policy analysis. And that argues for aggressive motives to curb emissions, soon.” as stated by the columnist  in the April 14^th article.

Both of Krugman’s articles appear under the headline “Green Economics,” with the April 14^th item having the extended heading, “Green Economics: The Cost of Inaction.” As a liberal economist, Krugman is concerned with costs and prices and he advocates the trade-based measures that has been a mainstay of environmentally-concerned policy makers in the affluent countries.

However, as the debacle at the Copenhagen climate change conference and summit last December demonstrated, these countries are unable to forge an agreement for reforms that would significantly prevent the “non-negligible probability of utter disaster” that climate change involves.

Globally, and in the US in particular where there is a laudable effort by a cross-partisan group of senators (Jon Kerry, Joe Lieberman  and Lindsey Graham, representing Democratic, Independent and Republican positions, respectively)  to push cap-and-trade limitations on greenhouse gas emissions,  Krugman writes that “[t]he immediate prospects for climate action do not look promising.”

As pleased as greens might be the advocacy of Nobelists like Al Gore and Paul Krugman for limiting atmospheric carbon, the real problem leading to environmental degradation is the one they are not willing to name: the economic hyper-growth produced by the (more-or-less)  free market system. A system that has made it safe for market forces to have free reign on planetary resources and the global commons is inherently unable to safeguard the environment. The same system that continues to produce sharp social discrepancies within and between societies and that has built great wealth in some countries based on the resource transfer from lands made poorer in the process, can be reformed to become safe for the environment only if it re-forms itself into another system — one based on providing universally  for basic needs and measured growth.

In policy circles existent today from Beijing to Washington, Jerusalem and Damascus, the kind of basic economic restructuring that the global environmental crises requires gets little play.

In the Middle East, thinking that is both green and socioeconomically responsible is particularly remote. In Israel, the Netanyahu government  seeks to privatize anything under the heavens (presumably air and water along with land if they only could) and to affords contractors free-reign in paving every square centimeter available. 

Elsewhere in the region, hugely capital-intensive projects like the Palm Islands (in Dubai), Masdar City (Abu Dhabi), Cedar Islands  (Lebanon) and Burj Khalifa  (Dubai) earthworks that are profoundly dubious environmentally are being erected in the name of some grand distortion of the concept of sustainability.

In the post-Copenhagen 2009 world, Middle East greens and advocates of sustainability everywhere should  localize and echo the powerful voices of the Gores and Krugmans. Right now, these voices are the closest we can get to influencing decision-makers to slow the gallop toward environmental ruin.

::NY Times
::Paul Klugman’s blog

Yosef Gotlieb, a geographer specializing in global change and international development, wrote Self-Determination in the Middle East (1982) and Development, Environment and Global Dysfunction (1996).  He is on the faculty of David Yellin College, Jerusalem.

The Green Prophet has questioned the environmental sustainability of the tallest building in the world, but the Burj Khalifa in Dubai will at least do its part to observe Earth Hour on March 27 by switching off its exterior lights from 8:30-9:30 PM. Officially opened in January, the Burj Khalifa will be shrouded in darkness for one hour together with thousands of other iconic buildings and landmarks around the world – including the three tallest towers in the world after Burj Khalifa: CN Tower, Taipei 101 and Willis Tower.

“Turning off the golden glow that cascades down the 828-meter tower and the starry illuminations that punctuate it, the Burj Khalifa will make its presence felt for the first time in the planet’s most emphatic campaign against climate change,” the Dubai-based Khaleej Times enthusiastically reports.

ArabianBusiness.com quotes Ahmad Al Matrooshi, the managing director of the building’s developer, Emaar Properties: “We believe that meaningful change can be brought about through community action, and we are taking the lead by participating in Earth Hour. Emaar is also encouraging all community residents to partner in Earth Hour, and urge them to switch off lights for the hour along with the rest of the world. Our schools will also participate in the initiative… [and] we are confident that the message of sustainable growth initiatives will reach out to a large audience across the world.”

Founded by WWF and originating in Australia in 2007, Earth Hour is a global sustainability movement in which over 35 countries have participated. According to Earth Hour Executive Director Andy Ridley, “Earth Hour demonstrates the determination of the world’s citizens for a better and healthier world. It is an opportunity for the global community to speak in one voice on the issue of climate change.”

Like many of Dubai’s projects The World, which will exacerbate shoreline erosion and habitat loss, and Burj Dabai, reputedly the world’s tallest building, are flashy and expensive.  They are also divorced from the United Arab Emirates’ environmental hazards such as scant freshwater supply and desertification, and though undeniably clever, their eco-footprints are questionable. Timelinks, a consortium of urban planners, scientists, and architectural designers, has designed another less-than-sensible solution to the UAE’s environmental and urban crises.  They call it the Ziggurat.

In ancient Babylon, ziggurats were towering structures built with mud brick and with diminishing squares.  The towers resembled pyramids in shape but were built with stairs such that it was possible to move between levels.  Central to society, each tower included a special addition at the summit, which was probably designed to serve the gods.  The best preserved of such ancient ziggurats is in Iran’s Khuzestan province, and was built for the Elamite King Untash-Napirisha.

Should it ever evolve from design to reality, the modern Ziggurat would be no less monumental than ancient ziggurats.  The base of the tower city will be 2.3 square km, and one million people could call it home.  According to Timelinks’ website, this project “will provide a harmonious, ecological, and safe environment.  Ziggurat is a city where people, nature and modern technology unite to harmonize family, work, and entertainment.”

The design’s most phenomenal claim is that it will be “carbon neutral,” and will exist entirely off the grid.  Though it has been difficult to obtain specific information, “water evaporation, steam, solar energy, wind turbines, and hydroponics” are among the city/building’s features that will render it self-sustaining.  Residents will be able to enjoy artificial lakes and parks and water channels, and could even participate in urban farming.  Security will be ensured by biometric facial recognition, and cars will be a thing of the past.  To get to work, residents will hop into what looks like a cable car that moves horizontally, vertically, and at 360 degrees, keeping their commute to 15 minutes maximum.

World Architecture News reports that Martyn Kramer – the Managing Director of the International Institute for the Urban Environment – believes that the city/building is “viable from a technical point of view,” though he does question whether living in a machine will be comforting for its residents.  Not only that, but is it really healthy to squish one million people into such a relatively small area?

Although it is both admirable and necessary that designers and scientists seek solutions to the problem of open space, we hope that the consideration of psychological health, as well as ecological and economical health, will trump self-aggrandizing design.

More on sustainable building:
Greater Amman Municipality Introduces Recycling in Amman
AGRAme, Honeywell, and Biofuel Projects in Dubai
Rethinking Climate Change Under the Middle East Sun

Global issues concerning green agriculture and energy sustainability have raised many viability questions during the early 21st century. Collaborate efforts of world leaders, non-profits, and research institutes have made great achievements in the area. Units like the CGI and Doug Band tackle Haitian Rice Crop Sustainability through the IRRI (International Rice Research Institute), while also manipulating emission reduction in the San Francisco Bay Area of the USA. Although, the US isn’t the only one playing their role!

Organizations like Ultra Green Middle East tackle issues like water treatment/purification, waste-to-energy and establish LEED eco-friendly buildings. Subsequently, continued success of green initiatives within the Middle East has led us to some of the greatest agricultural innovations yet.

One of the seven emirates of the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Dubai is home to one of the largest agribusiness events within the region, AGRAme. Held in the Dubai World Trade Centre from March 29 to 31, the agribusiness show covers five closely connected sectors including:

1) agribusiness

2) poultry and livestock

3) fishing and aquaculture

4) horticulture and floriculture

5) machinery and supplies

One of the major issues with green agriculture lies in the ideology of harvesting the bi-products (oil) of plants as biofuel. The premier demonstration at the event will be technology introduced by Honeywell that converts the oil from salicornia plants, commonly known as samphire (Haute Cuisine), into biofuel.

These seeds are known to have nearly double the oil content of soya beans. They are harvested to make vegetable oil, or processed to provide agro-fuel. The remains are used as food for livestock. Goutam Malhotra, Exhibition Manager for AGRA Middle East states: “Industry experts have long advocated continued investment in relevant technology and equipments to increase the region’s ability to produce food locally and reduce reliance on imported produce.”

In the end, the renewable energy will ideally be utilized for aviation.

Meanwhile, The Sustainable Bioenergy Research Project in Abu Dhabi will also incorporate fish farming and a mangrove plantation. Held by the Masdar Institute of Science and Technology, this will demonstrate the practicality of using saltwater agriculture to yield fuel. The project will fashion an ecosystem comprised of fish ponds, salicornia fields and mangrove swamps.

As these institutions and organizations like Masdar, Boeing, Etihad Airways, and Honeywell continue to fund and execute great sustainability projects like the items above, we’ll be sure to see great things in upcoming AGRAme shows. With advances in alternative energy and environmental technologies, global organizations support green movements, consequently making the earth a cleaner, greener place to live.

::AGRAme website

This guest post is written by James Garver, a left wing writer and follower of all things progressive and green.

But all might not be lost if the United Arab Emirate’s “Green Sheikh” gets his way: Sheikh Abdul Aziz bin Ali Al-Nuaimi, a member of the ruling Ajman Royal Family is now being known not just for his wealth. Locals are calling him the “Green Sheikh” and “Down to Earth Sheikh” as a result of his concern for his local and the world’s environment as a result of pollution and climate change. His concern started young, says his family.

According to the National, Sheikh Al Nuaimi has embarked on a journey to Antarctica as part of a 70 member team to study the effects of global warming and climate change on what was once considered to be the world’s coldest place on earth.

“If I wasn’t [down to earth] you wouldn’t see me here (preparing for such a trip).You have to find something where you can make an impact, far away from your daily and routine life, far away from your family and country,” he said.

Even before deciding to undertake such an adventure, Al Nuaimi was already being referred to as “the Green Sheikh” due to his passion and concern for the environment which began when he age 6, when he  accompanied his father on hunting trips using only trained falcons instead of guns.

“My father was an excellent falconer and learned the ways of nature from these magnificent birds which take what they need and not what they desire in order to live,” he said.

The Sheikh also became aware from Man’s destruction of the environment during his stint in the petroleum industry as a young man, when he began to see the effects of  extracting oil from the ground and what it became after being refined into gasoline and other products.

“I knew I wanted to convert from a chemical engineer, from a polluter to a protector, to an environmental engineer. So I converted. It’s the same knowledge, just flip the chart, flip the paradigm,” he continued.

Taking that in mind, he left the petroleum industry and went back to university to earn a masters degree in environmental science. Since then, he has devoted his life to finding ways to protect and preserve the environment. This was followed by a PHD in Industrial Ecosystems, a field that is very much needed in the fast developing Persian Gulf region where he lives.

His official role is as the environmental adviser to the Ajman Government, where he is also chairman of Green Base Environmental Services and the founder of the Majlis for Holistic Knowledge and Holistic Health, according to another National article on him.

During his stay in Antarctica, Sheikh Al Nuaimi hopes to study how the melting of ice shelves and glaciers in the worlds’ most southern continent will have an eventual effect on the region he hails from.

Actions by concern environmentalists like Sheikh Al-Nuaimi is a far cry from those of other less concerned individuals in the UAE who construct grandiose development projects such as  Dubai’s “The World” which is threatening marine and coastal eco-structures; as well as Abu Dhabi’s Al Reem Island project, considered by many to be nothing more than “a playground for the wealthy.”

The Sheikh’s concern for the future of our environment has also bound to be much more than that of the Abu Dhabi oil billionaire who is the “proud” owner of a white gold Mercedes sport’s car, said to be worth more than $2.5 million, that was the subject of a recent Green Prophet article.

Environmentalists like Sheikh Al Nuaimi are a courageous breed; and can be compared to other heirs like David de Rothschild who has been involved in a number of environmental projects including a planned voyage in a boat made from recycled plastic materials to a large floating plastic “island” in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.

It would be ideal if both De Rothschild and Sheikh Al Nuaimi will one day pool their efforts to work together on projects to help preserve what is left of our world environment. Maybe they could sail away together on the Plastiki sailboat made from plastic bottles, and after accounting the destruction of garbage island, sail over to the Gulf where they can take count of soil erosion and other man-made problems. Think of the movie they could make!

:: The National

More green news on the UAE:
Is Abu Dhabi’s Al Reem Island Considering the Environmental Implications?
UAE’s SAG Group Tell’s Middle East to “Take Environment Seriously or Suffer”
The World and other Developmental Projects Causing Serious Gulf Erosion

Coastal waters are evolutionary hotspots, says Jerry Berne, a shoreline expert from the NGO Sustainable Shorelines in the US. Based in Charlotte, NC, USA, Berne is concerned about the toll construction and shoreline projects are having on the world’s marine ecosystems. Looking at the intensive construction projects ongoing in the Gulf region, such as Dubai’s The World, and over-pumping of aquifers by the Palestinian and Israeli authorities, Berne sees our current management of shorelines as a disaster. In an interview with Green Prophet, Berne points out the problems in the Middle East and gives alternative solutions, such as offshore ports powered by solar energy, to stop soil erosion and habitat loss.

1. Please tell us a little more about you and your interest in soil erosion.

I was an architect who, upon experiencing the rapid erosion of a favorite beach in the mid-1990’s, began to investigate its causes and possible mitigation options. The more I discovered the more concerned I became for the damage being done to our coastal resources by man’s activities.

I volunteered to work with North Carolina’s famed environmentalist and nature photographer Hugh Morton in his efforts to save the Cape Hatteras Lighthouse in its powerful place by the sea.

Mr. Morton also owned Grandfather Mountain, a major natural tourist attraction and a UN Biosphere Reserve site. Mr. Morton advocated using an environmentally sound and sustainable method of coastal erosion mitigation, Holmberg Technologies, to protect the Lighthouse and to demonstrate this method’s suitability to preserve other coastal habitats.

This effort failed in a large part due to the influence of the US Army Corps of Engineers (major dredging advocates) as well as some who strongly supported abandoning our coastal resources to the sea. Given the evidence of man’s impact on these, this was/is an irrational and un-environmentally sound position.

From my architectural education, I could readily see the problem of overdevelopment in habitat loss and pollution. What was not so obvious was what was mostly hidden from us underwater: the navigational channels, offshore aggregate mining, erosion “control” and navigational structures. These with changes to our river systems –channelization, dams, etc.– also impacted our coastlines ability to “heal” itself from the natural erosion caused by storms and incremental sea level rise.

As my perspective is mainly from “on the beach”, my answers on soil erosion are going to embrace the often ignored erosion crisis on our shorelines. To encourage more attention to this crisis, I work with other organizations with similar goals as the UK’s FOE/MARINET group (http://marinet.org.uk/) and have participated in research programs including the EU’s Soil Protection Issue Group’s contribution to its Environmental Technologies Action Plan.

2. What are some of the root causes of soil erosion and why is this a concern in the Gulf Region?

The Gulf region shares this problem with any other area with coastlines. It also has been very active in dredging for both navigation and land reclamation (see Answer 5). As such, its shorelines are experiencing much habitat loss both on and offshore. This activity can also impact fresh water resources (see Answer 3), a critically scarce Gulf resource.

While many do not necessarily consider coastal erosion when thinking of the phrase “soil erosion”, it is imperative that we began to do this. Not only are we losing expensive real estate and tourism economics, we are losing habitat.

Our coastal habitats –deltas, estuaries, wetlands, reefs — are also our sealife nurseries from which most of our commercial fishing resources are derived. We must consider the commercial aspects of our shorelines as this seems to be the major concern of those with the power to actually implement policies and practices to mitigate manmade coastal erosion.

Perhaps the greatest contributor to this erosion is dredging. In our efforts to facilitate commercial –even recreational– navigation, we have changed nature and not adapted our vessels to it. Altering coastal waterways, inlets and bays also alters current and wave patterns. These are often accelerated and redirected creating what amounts to hydraulic mining along our coastal landforms scouring these away. Much of the sediment from these is flumed far offshore and out of the littoral systems.

To “mitigate” this loss, the same engineering firms and marine construction companies who dredged these initially are often hired to replace the lost shoreline with sand from these excavations or mined from the offshore. Either way, this process actually accelerates erosion such that beach “nourishment” is, in truth, a starvation diet. Sand fill derived from navigational dredging of a channel or inlet can be tainted with pollutants, it changes currents and flumes much of the naturally replenishing sediments far offshore and out of the littoral systems. If the fill is mined (stripped-mined) from offshore, naturally storm energy damping shoals are removed allowing more energy to strike the shoreline creating more ecological and economic damage. Both processes can deepen the nearshore

3. What kinds of effects can we expect to see in the marine and land environment if too much erosion takes place?

The most obvious the loss of the dry beach and dunes often with the accompaniment of manmade structures. What we do not see is the undersea side of this with changes to shoal and reef fish habitats. Eroding shorelines typically mean more sedimentation in the form of silts and fines. These can smother seabed and reef habitats.

The changes in salinity as land barriers erode effect wetlands and estuaries by altering critical sealife chemical balances. This also allows the loss of coastal fresh water aquifers to salt water infiltration effecting plants and, of course, human potable water sources. Salinization becomes even more problematic as climate change lessened rainfall reduces river flows and groundwater recharge. We must consider that the shallow deltas and inlets which once constrained the outward flow of fresh water and held the salt sea at bay are now hydraulic super highways thanks to dredging.

One of the most symbolic environmental concerns to many are sea turtle losses and the Gulf is home to the endangered green turtle. These are being lost to fishing operations, native food traditions and the ingestion of solid and chemical pollutants. Equally critical is the loss of habitat to development, erosion and the indiscriminate use of beach “nourishment” projects to “restore” beaches which are nesting grounds.

The fill sand may provide a temporary dry beach for nesting, but the fill is often incompatible to the original beach’s naturally acquired sand and alters the survival of the baby turtles through changes in sand temperature, compaction and irregular scarping.

4. How could overbuilding and climate change exacerbate soil erosion?

Overbuilding or over-development can impact erosion by destroying parts of our natural shorelines’ abilities to protect itself. The loss of sand dunes, the filling of wetlands and traditionally engineered shore “protection” structures to “protect” this development all contribute to the further loss of shoreline.

One of the most insidious methods to protect this development is the heavy promotion of beach “nourishment” as a rational method. Both navigational dredging and offshore aggregate mining weaken our natural shoreline defenses (beaches, shoals, reefs, etc.) by removing naturally replenishing sediments to deep water and by actually deepening the nearshore allowing more wave energy to strike the shoreline. We must remember that we only see the loss of dry beach, not the massive amount of near and off shore that is removed before this occurs.

Climate change is anticipated to cause rapid (in geologic terms) sea level rise and increased storm intensities. The manmade changes to our coastlines have severely weakened our natural coastal defenses’ ability to mitigate and slow the impacts of climate changes –itself the major manmade change encompassing the entire earth.

5. What Middle East countries are at risk?

The loss of coastal barrier lands to erosion and the dredging of deep channels far inland allows salt water to infiltrate any fresh ground water and aquifers contiguous to these. This is exacerbated by over-pumping these sources for potable water and agricultural as is happening in Israel and the Palestinian territories.

Salt water is also effecting agricultural lands in the critical Nile River delta. This is due to both the loss of fresh, unpolluted water and its rapid erosion. This erosion is due in part to the loss of sediment now trapped behind the Aswan Dam. Channel dredging and sea level rise accelerate this loss.

Again, dredging is a major component of our coastal erosion crisis whether is for navigation or seabed strip-mining for construction fill or aggregates. Even so, MENAFN has several articles on recent efforts to expand dredging and coastal construction in the Mideast.

These include $629 million to construct four artificial islands off Abu Dhabi; Saudi Arabia welcoming its new dredging ship, the largest of its kind in the world, for coastal construction; plans for a new Suez Canal entrance channel; Haifa harbor mining for construction aggregates; $200 million for port dredging/construction at Sohar, Oman; etc.

There has even been a scheme proposed to expand Israel/Palestinian lands by filling in the eastern Mediterranean with dredged fill from it!

All of this puts sealife habitats at risk such as the Gulf’s reefs. A new study on the effects of climate change and coral reefs is just being released by the UK’s University of Exeter. While it states that reefs in marine reserves can recover from global warming, it also states that these also protect the reefs from “potentially-damaging human activity, like dredging and fishing.”

Even more interestingly, this study was funded by the Khaled bin Sultan Living Oceans Foundation (whose website video show’s its founder exploring a reef). Astonishingly, we are already aware of the severe stress on Gulf reefs due to sedimentation from erosion or fines and silts from the dredging there. We should also be aware that that reefs were just declared “evolutionary hot spots” in a new research report from Germany’s Humboldt University.

6. What measures can be done to stop this from happening.

We must become more aware of our impact on coastal environments. Just as we once thought the sea too vast for us to harm with our discards and pollutants, we now know our actions can effect the entire planet. We would not accept environmentally disastrous strip-mining or canyon digging on our lands; we must not accept it in our waters. Unfortunately, we still accept paving over our coastal resources.

To reduce the need for navigational dredging and structures, we need a new vision for our commercial shipping industry which is, in many ways, “back to the future”. While deeply dug navigational channels may extend inland several kilometers, these can extend seaward tens of kilometers to reach deep water.

By engineering new, technologically advanced offshore ports, we could remove the major manmade erosion cause from our coastlines. Current/wave, wind and solar energy might power these.

The super-deep draft vessels of today and even larger ones of tomorrow could ply the oceans between these drill-platform style island ports where each’s cargo could be handled robotically and even have it security checked.

This cargo could be transferred to coastal vessels (as once was done) which are designed for our coastal waterways rather than re-engineering our waterways for massive ships. This could help our coastlines to heal naturally as well as create more ports of entry spreading coastal economies –and jobs– all along our coastlines. This would also reduce port pollution and potentially reduce land transportation costs and pollution.

To help with this coastal healing, we must adopt proven erosion mitigation technology. One of its most successful implementations of these is in the Middle East. In 1999/2000, Holmberg Technologies installed one of its Undercurrent Stabilizers Systems at Ras Tanura, Saudi Arabia for Aramco.

The site was one where dredging and all other engineered methods, including a massive boulder/concrete seawall, had failed to stop the erosion threatening a housing complex. This erosion was caused by the oil loading terminal east of the site which created a sand starved area in the shadow of its long structures.

After seeing its housing complex again threatened, the Aramco housing authority overruled its engineers and employed Holmberg’s passive, permanent method to halt the erosion. Within weeks of its completion, the beach had expanded by 20 meters and elevated by 2 covering sections of the remaining seawall. The shoreline continues to expand.

This demonstration is important in that it shows that we can mitigate much of our current self-inflicted shore wounds with an existing technology –shown to be environmentally sound and sustainable– even in areas thought to be sand starved. As importantly, it is considerably less expensive to the environment and government economies than the beach nourishment and traditionally engineered projects sold by engineering firms and international dredging companies. Holmberg’s work is shown to shallow the nearshore while expanding the dry beach and backshore dunes. It also is shown to elevate the shoreline –an important attribute as sea levels rise.

There are a myriad of other methods which are proposed or which have been attempted, though not necessarilly successfully. These include beach dewatering (which might be problematic to coastal aquifers), artificial offshore reefs/breakwaters, semi-permeable netting to catch sand, etc. There is even one method which is a biochemical designed to neutralize pollutants which may cause sand to flow more freely thus allow beaches to erode faster. To date, however, Holmberg remains the only method with any long-term, credible evidence of success including university research, professional monitoring reports and over 30 years of empirical evidence.

In the 1960’s, a dam project on the Amazon River threaten to drown a huge population of indigenous animals as the water rose behind the dam. Biologists called for help to save those trapped with the alarming message, “Time is short and the water rises.” Now the water rises for all of us.

Jerry Berne
Sustainable Shorelines, Inc. (www.sustainableshorelines.org)
Charlotte, NC, USA

Sustainable Shorelines is a nonprofit corporation dedicated to documenting current environmental events on our shorelines, identifying and seeking to change those coastal policies and practices which are harmful and advocating protecting our coastal habitats and the ecosystems these support with methods proven to be environmentally sound and sustainable.

The Dubai municipality seeks to increase the emirate’s green areas by 4% by the end of next year, including new public parks and additional landscaping, ArabianBusiness.com reported today.

According to municipality officials, there is currently the equivalent of 13.18 square meters of green space per capita in Dubai. The aim is to nearly double this figure and offer every resident of the emirate 25 square meters of green by 2020. As part of this effort, some 27 million flowering plants were already planted last year, according to city officials.

“Until now we have only used locally produced plants and flowers, cultivated in our own greenhouses, to develop Dubai’s green spaces. However, we have very ambitious ideas and there is now a need for a greater variety of plant and flower species,” explained Mohammed Hassan Al Fardan of the municipality’s Public Parks and Horticulture Department.

The municipality confirmed its plans to expand Dubai’s greenery as the emirate prepares to host the fifth annual horticultural show, IPM Dubai, from March 8-10, at Airport Expo Dubai.

::Arabian Business