National Report Egypt
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Arab Republic of EGYPT Ministry of Higher Education Egyptian National UNESCO Commission (UNESCO – ALECSO – ISESCO) Egyptian National MAB Committee NATIONAL REPORT EGYPT 2011 - 2012 24th Session of the MAB-ICC Paris – France 9 – 13 July 2012 7, Ibrahim Aboul-Naga St., ext from Abbas El-Akkad St., Madinat Nasr, Cairo website http://www.egnatcom.org.eg June 2012 - 2 - THE NEW KALABSHA AREA WEST OF LAKE NASSER A POTENTIAL BIOSPHERE RESERVE FOR APPLICATION OF THE MADRID 2008 ACTION PLAN Foreword In the latest issue of the Egypt MAB Bulletin, we present the results of a long term socio-environmental research and development project of a singularly unique nature. The place is the area west of Lake Nasser, in southern Egypt. The time is about two decades of a governmental project to settle landless farmers and fishermen from the Delta and from Middle Egypt, in a barren, remote, hot and dry desert in that area. These people, who count several hundred, accepted the invitation of the Egyptian government to go there, hoping to successfully gain their living, improve their quality of life, and earn some surplus savings. These “new” lands are the surface of the plateaus on both sides of Lake Nasser, which became the banks of the Lake. The narrow strips of lands that were formerly cultivated by the Nubians are now under the waters of the Lake, and the Nubians have been relocated elsewhere in the Aswan Governorate, at the Kom Ombo plain, north of Aswan city. Hence these “new” lands are in fact a no-man’s-land. Besides the fishermen and landless farmers, there is a third unique group not found in any other community, which is the village reserved for widows and their children, i.e., women having very little chance to raise their children in their own hometowns. The name New Kalabsha comes from the fact that these new settlements on the Plateau, are above the emplacement of the old village of the same name which is now under water of Lake Nasser. This exceptional situation warrants that the principles and plans of the UNESCO Man and Biosphere Programme (MAB) be applied on a freshly established society, adapting their living conditions and their production techniques starting from a zero situation. Biosphere Reserves (BRs) of the MAB Programme are designated as “Laboratories for Sustainable Development”. They are almost all areas where people have been living together for centuries, who adapted their socio-politico-economic systems to the environmental conditions of the area they live in along several trial-and-error attempts that took several centuries to develop. When their areas are declared as Biosphere Reserves, their traditions and their know-how is already there and serves as a natural basis for drawing management plans for their Biosphere Reserve. The local community is already coherent, related by family ties, and has its own local institutions. Every one knows every one else and had amongst them long time contacts and exchanges. If the community in a Biosphere Reserve encounters problems, these are supposedly amenable to being resolved in community decision making by socially adapted and approved mechanisms already known to and used by the community, during its historical existence on that area. An exception to this generality was the declaration of a Biosphere Reserve which was a First in the history of the MAB Programme. This is the Islas Marias Biosphere Reserve, which are an archipelago of 4 islands in the Pacific Ocean some - 3 - 100 km off the western coast of Mexico. The islands are being used as a penal colony, containing the Islas Marias Federal Prison. The islands have a population of 1116 people living there. The main settlement has a population of 602. The inhabitants are not a coherent community with family ties, like in other BRs, but a population of convicts and inmates from different walks of life, brought to the Island with their families, which is in fact a penitentiary. The prison situation in Mexico became so critical that the government announced in 2004 that they were reactivating the Islas Marias prison to transfer 2,500 prisoners from prisons all over the country. The population includes besides these the prison administrators and the guards. The inmates are probably not involved in the management of such a BR. In addition to prisoners, on Maria Madre island there are employees of diverse institutions of the federal government, such as the Secretariat of Public Education, the Secretariat of the Environment, the Secretariat of Communications and Transport, post office, and the Secretariat of the Navy. Another group of settlers is made up of religious ministers and acolytes of the Catholic Church, nuns of the Order of Social Service, and invited teachers, technicians and their relatives. The colony is governed by a state official who is both the governor of the islands and chief judge. The military command is independent of the government and is exercised by an officer of the Mexican Navy. The New Kalabsha Area is in stark contrast from the traditional BRs where people are free, know each other, and have an established code of management of natural resources, and from the case of the Mexican Islas Marias, where people are not free but may know each other from their long residence together, and where the code of management is imposed by the military. The New Kalabsha Area is an area where people are free and composed of three different groups that barely know each other. It is thus a unique case where BR principles and plans can be applied from a zero start situation, giving a free hand for establishing management codes, unhampered by old established prejudices and strongly held traditions in homogeneous and coherent communities. In the New Kalabsha Area, people are determined to make their stay a success. Success here means getting some extra savings either to return home (especially in the case of fishermen who don’t have permanent homes as they live in their boats), or to stay and continue (this is especially the case of widows and most farmers, as they are given built houses). The uniqueness of this area and its importance as a BR where sustainable development values can be freely tested and applied is thus evident. They all tolerate the scorching sun and the difficulties of obtaining much of their basic needs, expecting to be assisted by scientists and administrators to reach a satisfactory level of living conditions, for themselves and for their progeny. If New Kalabsha Area is compared to other BRs, it evidently has more powerful credentials for nomination than many others. In the following pages the reader will be able to see all the necessary information about this unique experiment. We hope it will help as a tool to lead to better living conditions for its inhabitants. - 4 - An Explanatory Note By Dr. Ahmad Farouk Director Center for Development Services This applied action research project aimed at studying the possible human and environmental effects of climate change on the new resettlement area west of the High Dam Lake in Aswan and the linkages between climate change and factors such as water and vector-borne diseases, land degradation and management methods, temperature fluctuations, agriculture, and socio-economic aspects of the settlers’ community. The site of the research, undertaken in the past few years by the Near East Foundation Egypt (NEF) and its affiliate the Center for Development Center (CDS), is located in Aswan Governorate, specifically in the New Kalabsha area, Nubia. The Government of Egypt (GoE) has been implementing for the past decades a new national policy that entails moving populations from the overcrowded Nile Valley and resettling them in new communities in newly reclaimed desert lands. This new society is comprised of four (4) villages, namely: New Kalabsha, Garf Hussein, and Bashayer El-Kheir, located 100, 150, and 220 km from Aswan respectively. These three villages have been built jointly by the World Food Program (WFP) and the Egyptian Ministry of Agriculture and Land Reclamation (MoALR). These areas are to welcome approximately one (1) million people to be resettled in twelve (12) new communities by the year 2017. Methodology The applied research project carried out environmental, social and economic investigations using both qualitative and quantitative approaches. Through collaboration with universities and research centers namely the South Valley University (SVU), the Agricultural Research Center (ARC) and the High Dam Lake Development Authority (HDLDA) respectively. SVU played a key role in undertaking researches related to natural vegetation in the area; agro-forestry for controlling desertification and movement of sand dunes; increasing timber production; water pollutants in the lake and others. The ARC’s researchers contributed to the quality of the project through conducting a number of related researches and studies pertaining to crop development and introduction of new heat- resisting varieties of plants and economically viable ones such as jojoba planting. HDLDA is the main body responsible for developing the High Dam Lake area. The Authority is mandated to develop the area, utilize its resources effectively and in the meantime mitigate the negative socio-economic and environmental impacts from the lake, particularly on the local communities and new settlers. Outputs The socio-economic assessment carried out at the beginning of the project indicated vulnerabilities related to agricultural practices. This initiated a number of agricultural research activities in participation with the beneficiary farmers. Dialogue with beneficiaries during community meetings and focus group discussions, on the one - 5 - hand, and deliberations during workshops with research teams, on the other, led to the achievement of the following outputs: Agricultural Research Activities All agricultural experiments were designed by researchers from the Agriculture Research Center (ARC) in cooperation with project site team and farmers.