Introduction to the Egypt Expeditions

On the edge of Africa, Egypt is a country that holds a historical fascination for many people. Accredited with some of the earliest records of any civilized society, and home to the world renowned Pyramids and Mt. Sinai, where Moses is said to have received the Ten Commandments, Egypt is the setting for Operation Wallacea's only desert expedition.

In Egypt Operation Wallacea has a long-term agreement to help the Nature and Science Foundation (NSF) in achieving some of its objectives. The main project run by NSF is to continue the work of BioMap (originally funded by the Italian Co-operation Debt Swap via UNDP), in collating all the biodiversity records for Egypt for a range of taxa from historical travellers reports, museum collections, naturalist records, academic studies etc. so that these data can be used by the Egyptian Environmental Affairs Agency to manage their National Parks. The project has to date published identification guides and distribution details for the mammal fauna, butterfly fauna and 3 families of plants. In addition publications on the reptile fauna, 1 family of wasps and 2 further plant families are close to completion. The project aims to complete the publication of identification guides and distributional details for birds and the remaining 28 families of plants over the next few years.

This detailed study has revealed some significant knowledge gaps for particular areas of the country, which Operation Wallacea is helping to fill with a series of biodiversity surveys. One of the areas where more records are needed is the in the mountains of Southern Sinai within the St Katherine Protectorate. A sampling grid of 10km x 10km squares has been established to cover southern Sinai and constant sampling effort is being spent in each square. To date Op Wall teams have completed surveys on plants, reptiles, birds, mammals and bats in more than 40% of the squares in the southern Sinai. This survey effort is continuing in 2010 with some of the more remote mountain wadis being surveyed in a series of long treks.

A second Operation Wallacea survey though as part of the biodiversity mapping project with NSF is being started in 2010 in the remote western desert that lies west of the Nile and to the border in the south with Sudan and the west with Libya. Underneath this vast desert area lies water as close the surface as 2m. The Egyptian government is planning to use this water to irrigate much of this vast area to green the desert and provide a major food source for the country. The desert though contains some unique species within areas such as the White Desert Protectorate. BioMap in conjunction with Operation Wallacea is mounting an initial 2-week expedition to survey the biodiversity of oases in the White Desert area from Baharia to Farafala. This 'fishing in the desert' project includes surveys of the fish, amphibians, reptiles and mammals of a series of remote oases as well as surveys of their importance as migrant staging posts for birds.

The main work of the NSF in the marine environment is targeting capacity building amongst Arab divers to undertake field research on their coral reefs. This is being done by a collaborative agreement between the University of Hull and the Foundation that is aimed at training a number of Arab nationals to meet the approved European Union standards to become qualified as Scientific Divers. A course has been developed and the training done by Operation Wallacea at the NSF Dahab site can be used towards this qualification.