IRECEIVED AN EMAIL last month from Gabriel Mikhail, author of the splendid Egyptian Wilderness: A Quest for Conservation. It took the form of an appeal sent to a vast list of people involved in the environment and conservation movements in Egypt against the proposed development of the Petrified Forest Protected Area, first reported in last month’s Egypt Today.

Established in 1989, the Petrified Forest Protected Area, outside Maadi, was set up to preserve a piece of fossilized forest dating from some 35 million years ago when Egypt’s climate was both cooler and wetter, and the vegetation and fauna very different from today. It is an area of great geological significance, an outdoor laboratory for students and a haven for its current desert denizens. Its importance as such was recognized in its declaration as a protected area, yet now, barely 16 years later, the Ministry of Housing and Development allegedly wants to build over a significant portion of the reserve, citing “lack of development and construction in [the] Protected Area.”

As this magazine reported in October, activists claim paleontologists have been prevented from contributing to a report on the area’s current status.

Firstly, great cities, and I think Cairo can claim to belong to this heady clique, are defined not just by their history, their architecture and their monuments, but by their open space.

I object to the ministry’s plans on a number of grounds. Firstly, great cities, and I think Cairo can claim to belong to this heady clique, are defined not just by their history, their architecture and their monuments, but by their open space. New York would be all the poorer without Central Park, green and wooded despite being surrounded by some of the most expensive real estate on the planet. San Francisco has a green vein running to its very core in Golden Gate Park. London has its Royal parks, Hyde Park, Regent’s Park and St James’ Park. Not to mention my favorite, Richmond Park, where, a short walk from the underground, you can be tracking herds of Fallow Deer to the yaffling of Green Woodpeckers.

A city should not be all city; urban can be urbane. Open space has a place and the authorities can see this: take the new Al-Azhar Park. Where the Ministry of Housing sees undeveloped waste, I see recreational and educational opportunity, a beige clearing in a concrete jungle.

I object to the ministry’s proposal because letting in the developers will make a mockery of Egypt’s program of declaring Protected Areas and their aim of having 15 percent of Egypt’s total land area ultimately under some sort of protection. If we capitulate here, then where next? Degla, already under threat? The islands south of Aswan, already cheek-by-jowl with vast hotels? Or, heaven forbid, St. Catherine’s or Ras Mohamed?

Precedents are often dangerous, and this is no exception. The Petrified Forest was declared protected back in 1989 for sound conservation reasons based on extensive environmental assessment. Its environmental importance, given the explosion of the city in the form of New Cairo, can only have increased.

The Ministry of Housing, I am sure, sees only chunks of fossil wood (claimed to be of Eocene origin), but in effect a barren rockscape. Not so. I took part in a survey of AUC’s New Campus, not so far away and also incorporating areas of petrified wood, that showed a distinct flora and fauna. Lively, engaged and interested biology students (under AUC biology professor Dr. Carey Dustin) found, and excuse the latin names, stands of Haloxylon salicoricum, the daisy Cotula cinerea, shrubby Zilla spinosa, Tamarix aphylla and Centuarea calcitrapa.

Altogether, 16 species of plants were recorded, and where there are plants there are animals. During the survey, I caught a glimpse of a Cape Hare zig-zagging into the distance. There were displaying Hoopoe Larks. The male Hoopoe Lark flies steeply up to some ten meters and then plummets earthwards calling, according to one interpretation, “voy voyvuuu vuuu swe-swe-swe-swe-swe-swe sisisisvee.” Believe me, it sounds good in the flesh, and female Hoopoe Larks are certainly convinced. There was a Kestrel cruising around, and because Kestrels feed largely on small mammals, there were probably gerbil species, or, because it was day, more likely Cairo Spiny Mice.

Mikhail’s e-mail highlighted other species such as the Mourning Wheatear, a black and white chat some 15 centimeters long whose orange-tinged vent distinguishes it from the rarer Pied Wheatear. I have also seen the rather larger Hooded Wheatear with its almost all-white tail. He also noted the Pallid Agama, a big-headed lizard with a long slender tail. It is an insect eater indicating further biological diversity.

Compromises may need to be made, such as making the reserve more user-friendly: labeled walking trails, cycle paths, a revamped visitor’s center, and so on. But before it is swept away by a concrete tsunami of hideous tower blocks, the authorities should reflect on the reasons the Petrified Forest Protected Area was declared in the first place.

And so to bird flu? I am not going to add to the mish-mash of information and misinformation that has filled the press in recent weeks. Professional advice is the job of medical doctors (again, such as in last month’s Egypt Today) rather than naturalists. But amongst the plethora of scare-mongering and apocalyptic talk of pandemics, and as of press time there have been no reports of bird flu in Egypt, there are two potential rays of sunshine.

Firstly, the government has taken the very prudent step of canceling all wild bird hunting over the coming year. This (declared as of October) may have come too late to prevent the bird netting along much of the North Coast, but it should ensure that shooting parties from countries such as Italy and Malta, catholic in their targets, do not come decimating our wintering birdlife on Lake Qarun and elsewhere this season. Gadwalls, Wigeons, Teals, Pochards and Tufted Ducks will all be breathing a collective sigh, or quack, of relief. It should also mean that the trapping of birds for the wild animal trade centered at places such as Abu Rawash and Tunsi Market should cease.

It is in just these places that wild birds come into contact with domestic fowl. The ban, however is one thing, enforcement is quite another.

Looking back in my Nicoll’s Birds of Egypt (1930) I found one interesting reference to wild birds coming into contact with domestic flocks, and this relates to the Spur-Winged Goose. The Spur-Winged Goose is a large (100 centimeters) glossy black and white bird with crimson bill and legs found over much of sub-Saharan Africa. The author, Richard Meinertzhagen, noted that the species “has been obtained in Egypt on several occasions, every one of which have been escaped birds, for the species is often brought to Egypt from the Sudan.” I know of no recent records and confusion with the domestic Muscovy Duck should not be discounted.

The second potential ray of sunshine is that in response to the bird flu, Egypt should be tightening up on its quarantine laws and hence clamping down on the illegal trade in exotic birds. The importance of this is shown by the fact that the only case of bird flu so far recorded from the UK was that of a parrot from Surinam that died in quarantine. That is why quarantine laws exist. Had it got into the UK pet market via the illegal trade, the consequences could have been extremely serious.

Not all is doom and gloom. I am a BBC addict and each morning my knee-jerk reaction on arriving at work is to open up the BBC website and absorb the morning’s news along with my first dose of caffeine. There are many wonderful things to be said about the BBC, but one of my favorites is its ability to pick up weird and wonderful stories from every corner of the globe that are unappreciated by other news outlets.

A couple of days ago, my eye hit the quite wonderful headline Sozzled Elks Hound Old Folks Home. Elks are a large species of deer, the males bearing an impressive rack of antlers. A pair of these rather intimidating beasts had managed to get drunk on fermenting apples in the village of Sibbhult in southern Sweden. So tipsy were the pair that the elderly residents of the local home were forced to call in the police, a tactic that failed until they managed to recruit the hound of a local hunter. The remaining apples were all cleared away. What a charming human interest story I thought, and then looked over to the “See Also” bar. Swedish Elk Steals Bicycle read the banner. O deer. et