Ties van der Hoeven’s ambitions are nothing if not grand. The Dutch engineer wants to transform a huge stretch of inhospitable desert into green, fertile land teeming with wildlife.
His sights are set on Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula, an arid, triangle-shaped expanse that connects Africa with Asia. Thousands of years ago it was bursting with life, he said, but years of farming and other human activity have helped turn it into a barren desert.
Van der Hoeven is convinced he can bring it back to life.
He has spent years fine tuning an initiative aimed at restoring plant and animal life to roughly 13,500 square miles of the Sinai Peninsula, an area slightly bigger than the state of Maryland. The goal: to suck up planet-heating carbon dioxide, increase rainfall and bring food and jobs to local people.
He believes it is the answer to a slew of huge global problems. “We are destroying our planet in a way which is scary,” he told CNN. “The only holistic way out of this situation is with large-scale ecological regeneration”
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Article URL : https://www.cnn.com/2024/09/08/climate/regreen-desert-sinai-egypt/index.html