Activists aghast at plan for Mideast wetlands

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Feasting spot for birds
Richardson says a half-million birds stop at the Khor al-Beidah every year.

“The birds don’t have very much left,” he says. “It’s a very important site. It has the highest density of winter migrants anywhere in eastern Arabia.”

The lagoon is a shallow tidal flat where turquoise sea and orange sand form swirling arabesques, bordered by grassy desert dunes. The protected waters are laden with small fish and crabs that lure the birds that nest in adjacent mangroves and on a sandy barrier island.

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Bird enthusiasts are running out of sites in the Emirates.

Richardson says hundreds of people visit Khor al-Beidah every year for the wildlife. He and other activists long urged the government to protect the lagoon, arguing it is more valuable as an ecotourism destination than as home to another luxury housing complex.

BirdLife International, an advocacy group, has designated Khor al-Beidah an “important bird area” for hosting of 85 species, including the country’s largest wintering flock of crab plovers, one of the world’s rarest shorebirds.

The wetlands also are stopping place for the Emirates’ only flock of Great Knots, birds that migrate from nesting grounds on the Siberian tundra.

Taking a page from Fort Lauderdale
Developing the lagoon also could threaten endangered sea turtles and dugongs, a manatee-like sea mammal, Richardson says.

The marina project is meant to resemble canal-side neighborhoods of Fort Lauderdale, Fla., with residents able to walk to their boats and quickly cruise to open sea, says Mark Amirault, Emaar’s senior director of development.

As is common at similar luxury developments in Dubai, the homes will be targeted for sale to buyers from all over the world, especially Britain and elsewhere in Europe, as well as India, Pakistan and Arab countries.

Emaar, established in 1997, is responsible for many of the projects that have turned Dubai into the Middle East’s growth hub, including Burj Dubai, planned to be the world’s tallest building when it opens in 2008.

“What you’re seeing in this region is on par with development in North America 100 years ago,” says Robert Booth, Emaar’s executive director.

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