So after numerous searches for "Saudi Arabia" environmental impacts I was unable to find something that exactly fit this criteria, although I did find this article which I find pretty interesting.
The article is about how Saudi Arabia and Egypt were planning on creating a 15 mile long bridge across the Strait of Tiran directly linking Egypt and Saudi Arabia. Not only would there be significant environmental impacts on the sea, there would also be problems with Israel. Currently there is no direct land route between Saudi Arabia and Egypt, Israel is in the way. This bridge would have allowed for automobile access between the two countries (and continents). Israel had considerable problems with this bridge as it would have possibly impeded their access to the Gulf of Aqaba and beyond. If it had been constructed, it could have drastically changed the Middle East for those who lived there. Egypt recognizes Israel as a state while Saudi Arabia does not, so having an increasing amount of interactions between people of these two states could result in some changes occurring.
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I found the article really interesting, since I had never heard about that bridge.
ReplyDeleteI am not sure what they should do, but definitely there are ways of finding out whether the environmental consequences would be larger that the economic benefit to the Arab countries. If the consequences would be too big, then they shouldn't do it.
Egypt should also think about the fact that if they loose the coral reefs they might loose a lot of tourism from Europe as well, since many tourists go there for that reason. I am not really sure, what the best solution would be - I hope they did all necessary studies and made an informed decision on whether to make the bridge or not!
Wow, this is really interesting. I really wonder about what the effect of building this bridge would have been for Israeli relations with Egypt and Saudi Arabia.... if Saudi Arabia had no incentive to interact with Israel at all, things could certainly change a lot
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