Bedouins by the Lake: Environment, Change, and Sustainability in Southern EgyptSustainable development and environmental change have become two of the watchwords of the new century. But what do they mean for ordinary people living in some of the harshest environments in the world where survival is the driving force? This book sets out to examine these issues and how they affect, and are affected by, Bedouin communities living in the arid areas of the Nubian Desert in southeastern Egypt. Written by a joint Egyptian, Russian, and British research team, this book seeks to examine how the Bedouin of this area have coped with the environmental changes brought about after the construction of the Aswan High Dam and resulting formation of Lake Nasser. After documenting the nature of these changes, the authors show the practical and strategic ways in which the Bedouin have responded by adapting both their use of environmental resources and the social and economic dimensions of their community. Bedouins by the Lake argues that people in these communities are active agents of change and must not be seen as passive victims. For them, sustainable development and environmental change are not abstract academic debates, but real-life, everyday issues around which they must organize their lives. |
Contents
The People and the Pressure for Conservation | 9 |
Changing Environments | 33 |
New Resources New Opportunities | 67 |
Stability and Change | 127 |
Sustaining Wadi Allaqi? | 145 |
Common terms and phrases
Ababda Acacia ehrenbergiana Acacia tortilis subsp activities Allaqi Biosphere Reserve Allaqi Project animals annual arid Aswan High Dam Badri Balanites aegyptiaca Bedouin Bedouin communities Bedouin women Belal biodiversity Bishari camels charcoal Citrullus colocynthis conservation core area crops Cullen plicata cultivation Dickinson dS cm¯¹ Eastern Desert ecological economic ecosystem ecotone Egypt environment environmental knowledge Faidherbia Faidherbia albida farm feed fertilizer flood plain fodder Glinus Glinus lotoides growing growth habitats Hamed High Dam Lake household important indigenous knowledge inundation Irina Springuel irrigation kilometers Lake Nasser lake water lakeshore layer livestock located medicinal plants Mekki meters ASL Moalla Nile Valley Nubian particularly percent periods production Pulford raddiana Radwan Red Sea Hills roots runnel runoff water Sadinab salinity Senna alexandrina sheep and goats shilbeika shrubs silt species Springuel sustainable development tamarisk Tamarix nilotica Umm Ashira upstream vegetation Wadi Allaqi Biosphere wadi floor Wadi Quleib water level winter zone