Environmental study of Western Sahara
In line with United Nations policies on environmental preservation and protection, MINURSO has started a new project to study Western Sahara's nature and culture.
Still in its early stages, the project will allow UN Military Observers (UNMOs)
in team sites across the Territory to gather information and photos about the following subjects:
- Culture: tribes, traditions, languages, lifestyles;
- Nature: topographical features, weather, flora and fauna.
This information will then be classified and analyzed to create a detailed overview of the desert.
The continuous study will help UNMOs better understand and integrate into their environment and will provide information support for future Peacekeepers.
Flora
The desert:
The Sahara covers 3,500,000 miles, making it the largest desert in the world. Inhabited by less than 2 million people - mainly Arab nomads and Bedouins - its region is entirely covered by mountains, rocky areas, gravel plains, salt flats and huge areas of dunes. All these variations can be found in the Territory of Western Sahara.
Some parts in the central Sahara get no rain for years at a time. Western Sahara enjoys occasional very light rainfall in most areas of the Territory, but because of the scarcity of water, very few plants grow and shade is almost non-existent.
Environment and climate:
The area is currently arid but there is much geomorphological and archaeological evidence of a more humid environment in the past. The presence of sheets of fluvial gravels suggests an extensive river system in the past and channel migration during the past hundred thousand years. They often exhibit open hydrological systems with both inflow and outflow channels and, more rarely, these rivers terminate in closed basins.
Fauna
Nocturnal Life in the desert:
Most of desert animals stay out of the sun during the hottest part of the day. They stay deep underground in burrows, where the sand is much cooler. Burrowing animals, like the antelope squirrel, the badger, the gopher, the coyote and the kit fox, sleep while the sun is shining. At night, after the sun goes down and the sand cools off, they come out to hunt for food.
Diurnal life in the desert:
There are a few animals that can be seen during the day, including darkling beetles, red-tailed hawks and lizards. These animals, active during the day and inactive at night, protect themselves from the heat by spending most of the day in any shade they can find.
Archaeology
Tifariti Caves:
The Northern area of Western Sahara contains important rock art sites with prehistoric and protohistoric paintings. The majority of fauna depicted at these sites are wild animals, but domestic cattle and human figures are also present. Unfortunately, most of these painting are poorly preserved; in the majority of instances this is due to the repeated wetting of the surfaces, indiscriminate removal of parts of painted panels, as well as several other forms of disturbance.
While the styles of many of the human figures and depictions of animals clearly identify the rock art of Western Sahara with the greater Saharan region, the quantity of sites and the impressive series of superpositions showing extremely different styles, indicates a long tradition of rock art in the area. Thus, Western Saharan art is of great importance in terms of archaeology, history and cultural heritage.
Funerary archaeology:
The most striking evidence of prehistoric and protohistoric occupation in the North of Western Sahara is probably the funerary and ritual megalithic architecture. Stone monuments of different types and diverse locations punctuate the landscape of the region around Tifariti.
Such pre-Islamic monuments are a typical Saharan feature, dating back to the end of the 5th millennium BC.