Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan – the ruler of Abu Dhabi and first president of the United Arab Emirates – had a dream. He had several, as it happens, but this one involved transforming the dry-as-a-bone Sir Bani Yas Island into a lush forest paradise.
No expense was spared and what started three decades ago as one man’s dream has today become a showcase for Middle Eastern ecotourism and sustainability. The sheikh’s Greening of the Desert programme enabled the planting of 2.5 million plants and trees on the island, including over 18,000 date palms, olive groves and succulents around the palace grounds – all kept pristine by the island’s irrigation system.
Among the trees roam critically endangered species such as the Arabian oryx, declared extinct in the wild in 1976, the extravagantly horned scimitar-horned oryx and the Arabian gazelle (Gazella gazella cora) – known locally as the dhabi. Added to this is a menagerie of other (non-native) animals that caught Sheikh Zayed’s imagination, such as giraffes, eland, pink flamingoes and African ostriches.
The project is an environmentalist’s dream, but it is one that only someone with an excess of funds and a huge imagination could make happen.
The island was the ancestral home of the Bani Yas tribe, to which the majority of the UAE’s ruling families belong. It was a favoured site because sea breezes helped combat the excesses of the desert heat. It is believed to be the first place on the Arabian Peninsula to have been inhabited and has enduring spiritual significance, with 36 Islamic and Christian archaeological sites, including a Christian monastery that dates back to around 600AD.
Until the mid-20th century, dates were cultivated on the island and nearby pearl beds provided the main source of income. Then, in 1958, British explorers discovered a huge deposit of crude oil. The enormous wealth that came with this and subsequent finds transformed Sheikh Zayed from a tribal chieftain into a major player on the world’s economic stage. The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, set up by the sheikh in 1976, now has an estimated $1 trillion invested in world markets.
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