Bardawil & Sinai
A vision for a revitalized Sinai.
What if the beloved Sinai Peninsula became the jewel in the crown of Egypt? Imagine a region that brings eco-security and food abundance for Egypt and beyond. Picture a place that creates numerous job opportunities for ambitious Egyptian youth while providing innovative solutions to combat climate change. This vision is within reach, and we are here to make it happen.
Ecosystem regeneration: A path to sustainability.
The Bardawil & Sinai Initiative offers a holistic, nature-based solution to a multitude of problems. As well as restoring the Sinai’s ecosystems, providing substantial human and environmental benefits, the Initiative aims to dramatically transform the entire region, restoring the water cycle, altering weather patterns, and bringing regular, predictable precipitation to areas that are currently arid.
In so doing, it could be a framework for ecosystem restoration across arid and semi-arid lands of the world. With time running out and urgent challenges ahead, the Initiative invites and encourages further academic consideration, discussion and collaboration with policy makers, engineers and local communities most affected by climate change.
Any project as bold and innovative as the Bardawil & Sinai Initiative involves a degree of uncertainty and disagreement, but history suggests there is much to be gained from starting at the earliest opportunity, adopting an open, proactive, adaptive approach, and learning by doing. And there is much to lose by waiting or failing to act at all. Given the challenge of planetary restoration that now confronts us, a regreened Sinai could become a source of inspiration and a symbol of hope.
The Sinai peninsula and lake Bardawil initiative.
At the heart of the Bardawil & Sinai Initiative is an enlightened approach to living systems and the energy embodied within them. Given the opportunity, living systems have an inbuilt capacity to organise and regulate themselves on every scale, from a pond to a planet.
Prior to the Anthropocene, the geologic epoch of Earth where human-driven processes have overwhelmed natural processes, planetary biofunctionality relied on such forms of self-regulation. The more such interconnected systems are re-established, the more dynamic and resilient the entire ecosystems will become.
Key interventions for regeneration.
Restoring Bardawil Lake
The initial intervention is the regeneration of Lake Bardawil, on the Sinai’s Mediterranean coast, which would rapidly improve estuarine ecosystems and fish stocks.
Cultivating Vegetation
Utilizing the fertile soil, we will plant vegetation within protected domes in the desert. In a few years, trees will grow, paving the way for sustainable farming practices.
Enhancing water availability
We will introduce several techniques to capture moisture, making agriculture feasible across large areas of Sinai and creating a greener, more productive environment.
Restoring the hydrological cycle.
Once established, the restoration process in the Sinai is expected to be primarily self-sustaining.
As the landscape of the Sinai regreens and retains more moisture, a stable hydrological cycle is predicted to return, thus improving conditions for further regreening and agriculture, and, by extension, economic and political stability in the face of anticipated population pressure.
A global impact.
A regreened Sinai Peninsula could significantly alter weather patterns across the wider region. At present, in summer, the hot, dry Sinai draws moisture-laden north-westerly winds from the Mediterranean out into the Indian Ocean, where it fuels extreme weather events.
A cooler, moister Sinai would reverse the direction of these winds, distributing this moist Mediterranean air more locally. This would result in dramatically increased precipitation to surrounding areas such as eastern Egypt, western Saudi Arabia, Israel, Palestine, Jordan and beyond.
A source of international hope.
Green Sinai, serving as a bridge between East and West, will become a profound source of national pride.
Egypt will reaffirm its identity as the mother of the world by harnessing its rich history, innovation, and unwavering determination to foster prosperity, build a strong economy, and create a sustainable future for its people and all of humanity. Egypt’s history is not just a legacy; it holds the key to our collective future.