As Project Wadi Attir moves through its seventh year in existence, things are coming together on the project site.
The main structures of our Phase I Visitor’s Center are now in place, and the team is already using the space for staff meetings, and as a starting point for tours onsite:
Our Visitor Center Director, Nizar Egbaria, has already begun welcoming student volunteers to the site:
Students are given a tour of the site’s many functions, and told of their greater relevance to the concept of sustainability and its principles as defined by The Lab. Then, students assist in a number of onsite activities depending on where there visit falls in the season. Here, you can see students planting and cleaning the plots:
The goat herd is now living onsite, and Awad al Atrash, son of Ibrahim al Atrash, traditional Bedouin herder and founding member of Project Wadi Attir, works to tend to both sheep and goats:
Ali Alhawashla, Director of the Medicinal Plants Initiative, and Safia Morgan, Director of the Indigenous Vegetables Initiative, are both hard at work tending to their crop, which is flourishing onsite (vegetables, top; medicinal plants, bottom):
Ali poses with his dried harvest (top), and Safia poses with a desert-hardy squash (bottom):
Meanwhile, Dr. Stefan Leu’s Ecosystem Restoration efforts continue to transform the site:
As we move through the Ramadan period, the staff continues to make headway on their individual projects. We will share more updates soon!