Yasser Mahgoub Abstract The desert was always part of the Arabian culture and a way of life. After the discovery of oil during the 1940's, traditional Arab societies became urbanized and settled in newly constructed cities and towns. The desert became a place to visit for leisure and entertainment by locals and tourists. In Dubai, the desert is used as a tourist attraction for foreigners. In Kuwait, the desert is a seasonal attraction for families and groups during the winter time. This involves informal leisure activities that endanger the fragile desert environment and cause its pollution and degradation. This paper discusses the impact of informal desert tourism activities on the desert sustainability in Kuwait. It warns against the negative impact of current practices on the fragile desert environment as a result of informal local tourism activities. The paper explores successful examples from the region and the world in order to highlight aspects of successful interventions that blend in with the desert context. It suggests sustainable measures to deal with the planning and designing for desert ecotourism facilities that aim at protecting the fragile desert environment from deterioration and eventual extinction. K e y w o r d s : Ecotourism; Ecolodging; Desert; Kuwait.
INTRODUCTION The desert was always an important part of the Arab Gulf countries culture and way of life. After the discovery of oil in the 1940s, many traditional Arab societies became urbanized and settled in newly constructed cities and towns. The desert became a place to visit for leisure and entertainment for locals and tourists. It became an endangered environment because of rapid urbanization, war conflicts and informal tourist activities. In geography, a desert is a landscape form or region that receives very little precipitation (Wikipedia, 2007). It is a fragile habitat that hosts numerous types of plants, insects and animals. It covers one-third of the Earth's land surface. The Arabian Desert is a vast desert wilderness stretching from Yemen to the Persian Gulf and Oman to Jordan and Iraq. It occupies most of the Arabian Peninsula with an area of 2,330,000 square kilometers (USGS, 2007). Kuwait lies at the northwest part of the Arabian Gulf, covering an area of approximately 18,000 km2 and a coastline stretching 500 km long. It is located at the northeast tip of the Arabian Desert. This eco-region of the Arabian Peninsula stretches
Fig 1. Map of the Gulf and Arabian Desert.
from Oman in the south to Iraq and Jordan in the north. This part of the Arabian Desert covers almost one quarter of the Arabian Peninsula and is called in Arabic "Al-Ruba' Al-Khali" - the empty quarter indicating its emptiness and wilderness. (Figure 1) The desert is a seasonal attraction for families and groups during the winter time. Yet, these informal touristic activities endanger the fragile desert environment. There is a need to develop desert resorts that are ecological and sustainable to provide dif75
open house international Vol 32, No.4, December 2007 Towards Sustainable Desert Eco-Tourism in Kuwait: Learning from the Regional Experience
TOWARDS SUSTAINABLE DESERT ECO-TTOURISM IN KUWAIT: Learning from the Regional Experience