Siwa is a natural depression located in the Western Desert of Egypt. It comprises a group of small uninhabited oases and contains palm and olive trees and running springs. It enjoys a pollution-free natural environment and a unique form of agriculture that is present nowhere else in the world. It is fascinating for tourists and scientists alike. The UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) recently added the system of date palms used in Siwa to its register of World Agricultural Systems Heritage. Abdel-Wahab Zayed, secretary-general of the International Khalifa Award for Agricultural Innovation and a FAO goodwill ambassador, told Al-Ahram Weekly that Egypt has been implementing a programme to preserve Siwa by protecting it from urban sprawl, developing irrigation systems, and reintroducing traditional agricultural management. He said these efforts would help provide food security for Egypt. His statements were made during the Second Egyptian Date Palms Fetival held in Siwa's Olympic Village from 27 to 29 October under the auspices of President Abdel-Fattah Al-Sisi and with the support of Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al-Nahayan, UAE vice-president for the cabinet and minister of state affairs. The FAO has recently issued its Globally Ingenious Agriculture Heritage Systems (GIAHS) Award to Siwa, which aims to recognise efforts to preserve natural areas and brand them as places of international heritage, in like manner to the cultural heritage sites branded as world heritage by the UN cultural organisation UNESCO. Granting Siwa the GIAHS Award has made the oasis the sixth African and first Egyptian site whose traditional methods of agriculture have been recognised as important expressions of human heritage. Around the world, 37 sites have obtained the GIAHS Award, 26 of them in Asia (Bangladesh, China, India, Japan, the Philippines and Korea), two in Latin America (Chile and Peru), six in the Middle East and North Africa (Iran, the UAE, Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia and Egypt), and six in Africa, including in Kenya and Tanzania. The Second Egyptian Date Palms Fetival hosted a scientific conference entitled “The Sustainable Development of Dates and the Role of Scientific Research and Technology”. According to Zayed, the festival also included folklore and art exhibitions and an annual competition in which 80 participants took part, an increase of 14 per cent over last year. The competition included 12 categories and the prizes reached LE220,000. “Egypt has a competitive edge in dates marketing,” said Minister of Trade and Industry Tarek Kabil. “It is one of the biggest exporters of dates in the world and produces 18 per cent of the world's dates and 23 per cent of Arab production. We export only 2.7 per cent of our production, representing 4.6 per cent of world trade. This puts Egypt in ninth place in countries exporting dates worldwide,” he said. Together with the FAO, the ministry has drawn up a national strategy to develop the palm and dates sector in Egypt. An action plan will develop the sector and increase Egypt's competitive edge to increase exports from 38,000 to 120,000 tons annually over the next five years. Minister of Agriculture Essam Fayed said that the plan to develop the Siwa Oasis aims to make it into one of the world's top dates-producing locations, adding that the festival was a chance to reopen a plant that had been temporarily closed in 2005. Fayed said there were 3.12 million dates trees in Egypt, or nine per cent of the world total and 14 per cent of that of the region. “This year's festival is a real chance to attract more investment and tourists to the Marsa Matrouh governorate,” said Alaa Abu Zeid, the governor of Marsa Matrouh. “We also have unique handicrafts like textiles and silver ornaments. These should be highlighted and marketed through exhibitions at the local and international levels.” Giovana Sgili, head of the regional office of the UN Industrial Development Organisation (UNIDO) based in Cairo, pledged the organisation's commitment to supporting the dates sector in Egypt through providing technical support to producers, arranging educational visits on the regional and international levels, and facilitating the participation of small and medium-sized enterprise producers in international marketing exhibitions. FAO Regional Director Hussein Gadein told the Weekly that the FAO would fund the national strategy prepared in cooperation with the Ministry of Trade and Industry. Hanan Al-Hadari, head of the Trade, Technology and Innovation Committee at the ministry, said that it aimed “to open new horizons for dates producers to market and export their produce through inviting importers and the representatives of foreign markets. Together with the Marsa Matrouh governorate and the UAE Khalifa Award, we have developed the dates plant in Siwa, halted for more than 10 years due to technical problems, at a cost of LE5 million. The renovation was funded by the UAE, and the plant will soon be working at full capacity, employing 100 workers,” she said. UAE Ambassador to Egypt Gomaa Mubarak told the Weekly that “the development of the dates plant is in three stages: Producing 3,000 tons of dates in 2016-2017, followed by 6,000 tons in 2017-2018 and 10,000 tons in 2018, the maximum capacity of the plant.” TAZIRI WINS SCAHSA: Meanwhile the SCAHSA 2016 Sustainable Development Award, hosted by the UN Housing and Urban Development Conference (Habitat III) held from 17 to 20 October in the Ecuadorian capital Quito was awarded to the ecological village of Taziri in the Siwa Oasis. The conference is held every 20 years. In its third edition this year it was attended by 40,000 participants. Taziri manager and co-founder Taha Al-Shaabi explained that the “SCAHSA Award follows firm criteria that include planning, design, preserving the environment and green infrastructure, protecting cultural heritage, the use of renewable energy and other standards. All these things were met by the Taziri village, and winning the SCAHSA Award has enabled Taziri to open new channels of communication with international organisations and regional authorities interested in sustainable development.” Taziri started in 2007, Al-Shaabi recalls. “We chose a unique location to build the village west of Siwa at the foot of the Red Mountain that enjoys a magnificent view overlooking the Gary Lake and the golden dunes of the Great Sand Sea,” he said. In the Tamazighi language spoken by Siwans, Taziri means “full moon”, he added. “Through the full participation of the inhabitants of the Oasis and the active involvement of pioneers in eco-preservation, Taziri has accumulated a vast amount of experience in the area of sustainable development, in order to achieve a long-term vision of sustainability,” Al-Shaabi said. The village's use of renewable energy and work with experts in the field meant it had become an eco-hub able to deliver huge potential to the green development sector. “Taziri adopted traditional building methods by using Siwa's natural resources in addition to developing agriculture and the organic production of food, beauty products and traditional handicrafts to be marketed across the world. This has enabled Taziri to provide its own sustainable economic resources,” Al-Shaabi said. “Also high on the agenda are programmes for recycling. Taziri also aims to preserve the cultural heritage of the Siwa Oasis, which is why a library and museum have been established to showcase this heritage and art. The village also raises Arab horses that are both a sustainable means of transport and a feature that reflects the beauty and history of the oasis,” he added. HALITE IS A CURE: In Siwa, halite, or rock crystal salt, is not used for cooking but rather in decoration and medicine. Halite is extracted from an ancient lake in the oasis before being cut into different forms. “In west Siwa, there is a lake that is at least 350 years old that was formed after water flooded part of the land. The sun then evaporated the water, forming rock deposits that are rich in 84 types of minerals. The human body can absorb the minerals in this rock salt, such as iron, phosphorus and magnesium, helping it to get rid of negative energy,” Fathi Abdallah, a board member of the Siwa Association for Travel and Environmental Preservation, told the Weekly. Eissa Abdallah owns a workshop that makes the halite into craft items including lamps and ashtrays. “Studies have shown that the salt particles increase positive energy and decrease the tiredness that can result from exposure to electrical equipment, computers and television screens. Halite lamps help cure allergies, asthma, arthritis, joint pains, rheumatism, hypertension and sinus troubles, and they can increase the flow of oxygen to the brain,” Abdallah said. He said that only 20 per cent of his products were sold locally, primarily in Sharm El-Sheikh and Dahab, whereas the rest was exported to Europe. “The benefits of halite are not known to many people here, which is why our products are not sold on a large scale,” he said. Besides these benefits of halite, the mineral is also used in Siwa's well-known sand burial treatments. Senousi Al-Wahi, who helps patients with arthritis and rheumatism get treated in the sand burial sessions, said that the “patients are taken to the salt lake before being buried in the sand to help them get rid of any negative energy.”
