Ein-Khudra Oasis Garden Regeneration
The
oasis at Ein-Khudra is mentioned in the Bible and has been
cultivated continuously for over a thousand years by generations
of the same Bedouin family. From an intimate knowledge of
their environment, the Bedouin have traditionally developed
ingenious strategies for using the desert's precious natural
resources to best advantage. Cisterns and irrigation channels
collect and store rainwater and the local pattern of rainfall
determines decisions about planting and grazing. The plants
in their oasis gardens can provide food, fodder for animals,
fuel and medicine. However, pressures arising from population
growth, climatic change and mass tourism have undermined
the traditional ways, and of the five oasis gardens at Ein-Khudra
only one remained in cultivation.
The Makhad Trust has initiated participatory projects
between a variety of visiting working-parties and the Bedouin,
which to date have involved building a shelter, a water
cistern and a composting toilet as well as establishing
a small tree nursery. These are activities that were identified
by the Bedouin as the first steps towards regenerating the
oasis gardens and, in the longer term, enabling them to
support themselves.
The success of these projects has meant that more
Bedouin families have returned to live here as part of their
annual patterns of movement. This has resulted in the attempt
to introduce an additional energy supply through the use
of generators—which are noisy and use precious fossil fuels—though,
at the same time, the Ein-Khudra community is conscious
of the need to develop in ways that are ecologically sustainable.
Thus the next contribution of The Makhad Trust
is to assist with the introduction of solar energy. A group
of students from a College in England will be helping to
install the first solar panel as part of a journey in Sinai
that they are making as part of their education. The students
will be engaging with a process that will include research
into the technology, the development of an educational programme
for the Bedouin about solar energy, the gathering of materials
and construction on site.
Ein-Khudra is where The Makhad Trust began. The
concept, the principles and the programme of projects grew
from here. There will be further projects at Ein-Khudra
and they will occur, as in all our projects, in response
to the needs identified by the nomadic people and at a scale
and at a pace with which they are comfortable.