CAIRO: A Cairo criminal court sentenced former Egyptian Tourism Minister Zoheir Garana to three years in jail and revoked his license to own tourism companies in the country after he was accused of abusing power and illegally profiteering from his ministerial position. Garana left a number of troubling business deals in his wake, including Porto Fayoum, a massive tourism development in a proposed world heritage site in Egypt's Fayoum Oasis. Mansour Amer of the Amer Group, who plans to build Porto Fayoum on 650 acres of pristine coast in Fayoum's Lake Qarun protectorate, is also responsible for Porto Marina and Porto Sokhna, two huge tourism developments on Egypt's North and Ain Sokhna coasts. Former President Hosni Mubarak's government sold Amer Group the land on Lake Qarun for only $28,000 ($.01 per square meter), according to Egypt's American Chamber of Commerce. Reports state that this is the first development of such massive proportions to be allowed in an Egyptian protected area. Amer, a former member of Mubarak's National Democratic Party, reportedly has close ties to Mubarak and Garana. This and other tourism projects planned for a 10-kilometer stretch of coastal land along the northern part of Lake Qarun, 100 kilometers southwest of Cairo, will undoubtedly wreak untold damage to this unspoiled, scenic desert area, known as Gebel Qatrani. The area contains one of the world's most complete fossil records of terrestrial primates and marshland mammals and remains critical to our understanding of mammalian–and human–evolution. “[Gebel Qatrani] is one of the most interesting and undisturbed deserts in Egypt, containing crucial information about the development of civilization and the history of the world,” said Paoli Davoli, a leading egyptologist with Italy's Salento University, who has worked for the last decade at Dime, a Greco-Roman site in Gebel Qatrani, in a press statement. Just last year excavations in Gebel Qatrani revealed the complete fossil remains of a prehistoric whale, new to science. Gebel Qatrani has also been listed as a proposed UNESCO World Heritage Site, not only given its priceless fossil deposits, but also its archaeological treasures, including Pharaonic tombs and quarries and the world's most ancient paved road. This tourism development will also negatively affect birds and their habitats at Lake Qarun, a BirdLife International Important Bird Area. Egypt's official Tourism Development Authority (TDA), currently under investigation for corrupt and improper land deals, authorized these tourist developments, as well as the building of a 60-km asphalt road–to date half completed. Although the TDA participated in numerous studies highlighting Lake Qarun's importance for ecotourism, this body has promoted more conventional–and unsustainable–tourism in Lake Qarun—and throughout Egypt. Former Minister of Antiquities Zahi Hawass, who was legally obliged to protect Egypt's cultural heritage, allegedly gave the TDA permission to develop Gebel Qatrani. In 2009, Hawass stopped construction of the Amer Group's Porto Aswan after public outcry that it would harm antiquities and the local communities. Fayoum's former governor and other high-ranking government officials also supported the construction of Porto Fayoum, despite opposition from officials at Egypt's Ministry of State for Environmental Affairs, responsible for managing the country's protected areas. Nature Conservation Egypt is calling for Gebel Qatrani to be declared Egypt's first UNESCO Geopark to attract tourists, create job opportunities and as a first step towards making the area a World Heritage Site. BM
