- The Egyptian government opened up Ras Hankorab, a near-pristine beach inside a protected area along Egypt’s Red Sea coastline, to an investor to develop tourism facilities.
- Environmentalists launched a campaign to “save Ras Hankorab,” which succeeded in temporarily halting development activities at the site, and which critics say is aimed at foreign tourists.
- The beach is a nesting ground for endangered turtles, and the waters are home to a variety of coral and fish species and seagrass meadows.
- Ras Hankorab is one of several sites in Egypt where the government’s push to develop tourism in protected areas is facing opposition.
MARSA ALAM, Egypt — Ras Hankorab is a stretch of Red Sea coastline in Egypt renowned for its pristine beaches, coral reefs, and nesting grounds for endangered green turtles.
Located in the north of the Wadi El Gemal protected area, Ras Hankorab has become the site of a prolonged battle between local civil society organizations and the Egyptian government ever since the latter granted a private company the rights to develop tourism facilities here. Bulldozers appeared on the beach this February, sparking an outcry from civil society organizations and environmentalists.
In March, civil society groups launched the “Save Ras Hankorab” campaign, protesting the development. They launched a petition that gathered more than 7,000 signatures. The action eventually resulted in a temporary halt to development activities and prompted the government to review plans for the site.
That same month, the nonprofit Egyptian Center for Economic and Social Rights (ECESR) filed a formal complaint with the Prime Minister’s Office, the Ministry of Environment, and the Red Sea Governorate, pointing out that any construction activities and the use of heavy machinery in the area are in breach of Egypt’s protected area laws.
“Wadi El Gemal is one of the most important national parks in Egypt. It’s still virgin, there are no interventions from investors there, there is no industry, it’s a clean area,” ECESR lawyer Malek Adly told Mongabay.
Campaigners say that allowing a private company to develop Ras Hankorab and build a hotel is in conflict with several laws, including Egypt’s Nature Reserves Law of 1983, which prohibits activities that destroy, damage or degrade the natural environment, wildlife, marine life, plant life, or affect their ecosystem.
Another regulation, the presidential decree establishing the reserve in 2003 and amended in 2020, prohibits any activities that may lead to the destruction or degradation of the natural environment, harm wildlife, marine life or vegetation, or alter the area’s aesthetic integrity.
Wadi El Gemal encompasses a vast network of terrestrial and marine ecosystems. Ras Hankorab is considered one of its most significant sites due to its ecological richness. Unlike most places along the Red Sea coastline where fringing reefs hinder leisure water activities, Ras Hankorab is naturally sandy with shallow waters that makes it ideal for swimming and snorkeling. Despite that, it has not yet been overrun by tourists, owing to its remote location, some 350 kilometers (about 220 miles) away from the popular tourist city of Hurghada.
It’s also part of the traditional territory of the nomadic Ababda tribe.
However, over more than a decade, the area has caught the attention of investors who see an opportunity to develop ecotourism facilities aimed at foreign tourists. The Egyptian government has been pushing to expand tourism along the Red Sea coast south of Marsa Alam. Ras Hankorab has, until now, been considered a hidden gem by Egyptians, who can camp overnight on the beach for just 25 pounds (about 50 U.S. cents) per night.
The fear among environmentalists is that Wadi El Gemal could face a similar fate as other sites along the Red Sea coast, like the Abu Dabbab nature reserve, a protected turtle nesting beach about 100 km (60 mi) up the coast, that was transformed into an exclusive, fee-based tourist site run by a private company called Blue Ocean.
“At Abu Dabbab, they put up high entrance fees,” Adly said, “and made it inaccessible to Egyptians. The area became overloaded with tourists, and the ecosystem suffered.”
Egyptian cities like Sharm el-Sheikh and Hurghada along the Red Sea coast used to be small fishing villages in the 1980s. Today, they’re major resort towns with significant impacts on local communities and marine ecosystems. Among the documented detrimental impacts are damage to coral reefs from the construction of beach facilities and marinas, and an increase in pollution due to oil spills, sewage and littering.
Coral reefs off Ras Hankorab are among the most diverse in the Egyptian Red Sea, serving as habitats for jellyfish, giant clams, sea sponges, crustaceans and fish species, including the bluespotted fantail ray (Taeniura lymma), emperor angelfish (Pomacanthus imperator), and several species of parrotfish (Scarus collana and Chlorurus sordidus).
“The environmental sensitivity in this area is very high compared to the other areas of the reef, of the coral reefs, especially,” Mahmoud Hanafy, chief scientist of the NGO HEPCA and scientific adviser to the governor of the Red Sea Governorate, where the Wadi El Gemal protected area is located, told Mongabay.
“It has beaches for nesting of marine turtles, especially green turtles, which is an endangered species,” Hanafy said.
He said that while private sector involvement is necessary to ensure development happens sustainably, it must be low impact, and foreign tourists who stay in hotels along the coast should come only for day visits, as is the case at present. “What happened there is a matter of legal conflict, but I hope the government can solve it soon.”
In Egypt, the responsibility for managing protected areas lies with the Environmental Affairs Agency (EEAA). In the Red Sea areas, the EEAA implements environmental policy through its subdepartment, the Red Sea Protectorate (RSP).
The right to develop the beach at Ras Hankorab has been granted to a company called Impact for Tourism Investments, which Adly alleges has connections to powerful political figures in Egypt. Unlike in other protected areas, where entry fees go directly to the protected area management for the maintenance and conservation of the environment, in Ras Hankorab the revenue from the newly imposed entry fees goes into a shadowy government fund.
Other sources, who asked not to be named for fear of being targeted by the government, made similar allegations regarding the project in interviews with Mongabay.
People Mongabay spoke to in the area allege the development contract for the Ras Hankorab site was awarded through wasta, an Arabic term referring to the use of personal connections to bypass official procedures and secure deals.
Environmental lawyer Ahmed El-Seidi, who runs his own law firm, told Mongabay that the company is supposed to carry out an environmental impact assessment (EIA) for the site, in accordance with Article 19 of Egyptian environmental law and Article 10 of the executive regulations. To date, however, none of the interested or affected parties has been consulted about the development, and the status of the EIA is unknown, he said.
Mongabay was unable to independently verify the allegations. The Egyptian Environmental Agency and the Red Sea Governorate did not respond to Mongabay’s requests for comment. Impact for Tourism Investments is a registered company in Egypt, but has no website and no publicly listed address, email or phone number.
At the same time, local tourist guides Mongabay spoke to also say the beach umbrellas and toilet facilities installed by the developer have improved the site.
“These people [the investors] are better than the ones before [the protected area management]. It’s much nicer now, at least these people are looking after the place; they put up umbrellas, and there is running water, there are chairs,” a driver from the area told Mongabay. He said he felt the higher entry price is justified as it gives tourists a better experience.
Currently, the site offers around 30 beach umbrellas and lounge chairs, a beach shack where people can buy snacks and drink coffee prepared in the traditional Bedouin way, a toilet facility, and a corner to hire snorkeling gear. Ras Hankorab Beach gets about 100 day visitors from hotels outside Wadi El Gemal; there’s no permanent accommodation for tourists inside the reserve. Most of the visitors are Europeans who arrive in minibuses with local guides, pay the entrance fee, and spend several hours snorkeling over the coral reefs before leaving.
Guards Mongabay encountered at the entrance to the beach, standing by a wooden hut, issued $10 tickets per person and additional fees per car. Before the investor came, visitors used to go to the Wadi El Gemal protected area office at the entrance of the park to purchase tickets and move around freely in the area, including in Ras Hankorab.
There were no representatives or staff of the Wadi El Gemal protected area at Ras Hankorab when Mongabay visited in June this year.
“We are happy that we were able to stop them for now, but we don’t know what comes next; nothing is known,” Adly said of the suspended development activity. He went to see the site in April and said that at the time, all the heavy machinery had been removed.
“We are experiencing one of the most dangerous times for protected areas in Egypt,” Adly said. “We have a lack of environmental awareness, and we have a conflict between investments and environmental rights.”
The Egyptian government had not responded to Mongabay’s request for comment by the time this article was published.
When Mongabay visited Ras Hankorab, the bulldozers had withdrawn, and there was little indication of a big hotel complex being built. However, an employee of the investor, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told Mongabay they expect the company to go ahead and build huts or caravans to accommodate tourists before the end of the year.
Banner image: One of the entrances to the Wadi El Gemal protected area. Image by Mongabay.
Citations:
El-Asmar, H. M., Ahmed, M. H., El-Kafrawy, S. B., Oubid-Allah, A. H., Mohamed, T. A., & Khaled, M. A. (2015). Monitoring and assessing the coastal ecosystem at Hurghada, Red Sea coast, Egypt. Journal of Environment and Earth Science, 5(6), 144-160. Retrieved from https://core.ac.uk/reader/234664176
Hanafy, M. (2012). Effects of recreational scuba diving and snorkeling on coral reefs of the sheltered bays of the Red Sea, Egypt. Egyptian Journal of Aquatic Biology and Fisheries, 16(4), 43-56. doi:10.21608/ejabf.2012.2141
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