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www.bahraintribune.com The weather’s getting cooler and the minds of hundreds of people in Bahrain is turning to the pleasures of the outdoor life in Bahrain’s deserts. Camping season kicks off this week and is expected to continue till the first week of March.
Camping is taken seriously in Bahrain where it is seen as a means of keeping in touch with the Bedouin past that Arabs are proud of. However, environmentalists in the Kingdom say that modern Bahrainis have lost touch with the instinct to take care of their desert surroundings.
“Although camping has deep links to our desert heritage and our past as desert travellers, today’s desert campers are unaware of the basic ‘code of conduct’,” said Dr Saeed Abdulla, founder of the Kingdom’s first eco-tourism development office, Al Reem Environmental Consultation and Eco-tourism.
“There is a feeling that the desert is a sterile landscape with only minor irritants such as rodents and insects which can be killed to make for more comfortable camping. This is incorrect. The desert, in fact, supports its own unique eco-system and campers should respect that.”
Campers may be unintentionally damaging the delicate eco-system of the desert as they indiscriminately clear desert shrubs to make room for their tents, he said.
Some of the common mistakes that campers make is to clear the desert area of shrubs and rocks to set up camp, levelling the area to create recreational zones such as impromptu football fields, planting “foreign” shrubs in the desert and, of course littering, said Dr Abdulla.
“Many people don’t even know that changing the topography of the desert to accommodate their temporary camping needs can damage the rhythm of the eco-system. We need to behave at camp-sites as tourists – we should neither add to nor take away from the place.” | 
