Explanation:
Long before the need for sustainable development became widely recognised, the late Shaikh Zayed Bin Sultan Al Nahyan was achieving an environmental miracle: he was transforming the desert into a green haven.
Hamdi Tammam, in his book Zayed Bin Sultan Al Nahyan: The Leader and the March, wrote that the former president devoted much of his time making enquiries about the topography of the region.
After much research, Shaikh Zayed discovered that 15,000 years ago, the Arabian Peninsula was a very different place. Enveloped in thick forests and full of greenery, the land got transformed to a desert only after it was exposed to a long spell of drought that also forced its inhabitants to move in search of water. In time, the forests were buried and gradually transformed into the region's black gold or oil.
Shaikh Zayed charted a course to return the desert to its greener origins by increasing the number of trees, farms and palm orchards.
