Self-sufficiency and tourism in the Wadi Rum Desert

If you want to learn how to live with little resources, few can teach you as much as the people of the desert. One group that has mastered desert life over generations is the Bedouins of Middle East and North Africa. Bedouins have traditionally lived nomadic lives, moving seasonally to fresh pasture and water sources. In Jordan, this means spending the hottest summer months in the north of the country in portable goat hair tents, while the cooler and rainier winter months are spent in the southern desert in more permanent winter camps. Many Bedouins in Jordan still live this way, but more and more are choosing to stay in the desert all year – a choice that brings with it new challenges, including access to water during the long dry season.

A few months ago I found out how continuous life in the desert is possible, when I volunteered at Malakot Camp in the Wadi Rum Desert of Jordan. My hosts at Malakot are in the process of building a caravanserai, or guest house for travelers, and their goal is to become as self-sufficient as possible. To achieve this goal, my hosts are using a combination of traditional Bedouin knowledge and modern technology. Added to this mix is tourism, which gives desert dwellers a source of income that is necessary in the 21st century. Indeed, tourism has become a major source of revenue for the Bedouins of Jordan, but what kind of impact is tourism having on the desert and its people?

Traditional and modern self-sufficiency in Wadi Rum

Being self-sufficient is difficult anywhere, and the desert certainly adds its own challenges. Bedouins have been living in the hot, arid desert for millennia and their traditional knowledge is a valuable source of information for anyone wishing to live in the desert today. Self-sufficiency is part of the Bedouin lifestyle, with camels, horses, donkeys, sheep and goats providing milk, meat, wool and hides that can be traded for other goods. Today solar panels and other technology make life in the desert easier, even though modern lifestyles also bring new problems, such as waste.

The key to survival in the desert is of course water. Nomadic Bedouins only stay in Wadi Rum during the rainy winter months, when water is easier to find and there is more vegetation for animals to graze on. For year-round stays, water storage becomes essential. Today my hosts at Malakot have no water source at the camp and need to collect water from a well seven kilometers away, which is inconvenient and far from self-sufficient. Their plan is to build a dam that catches rainwater runoff from the mountain next to their camp. This type of dams have also been built traditionally in Wadi Rum, and they can easily be full in winter and spring.

But the Bedouins know there is water all year even in the desert – you just need to know where to look for it. Vegetation is a sign of water, but under every granite and sandstone mountain in Wadi Rum there is also a hollow chamber where rainwater collects naturally. These chambers have been used as wells already in ancient times, but today’s technology makes it easier to locate and access these natural reservoirs. My hosts at Malakot also want to find this chamber at their camp, empty it from sand and use it as a well that would hopefully provide them with enough water to survive the dry season.

Once a water source has been found, the focus turns to food production. Bedouins grow a variety of vegetables in the Wadi Rum Desert, such as tomatoes and potatoes. My hosts at Malakot plan to have a garden that also includes food-bearing trees, such as lemon, mango, avocado, fig and guava. During my stay we started building a garden bed using rammed earth tires. This small garden recycles waste water, which makes it possible to start growing trees even before a self-sufficient water management system is fully developed. My hosts also keep goats and chickens.

Supporting desert life through responsible tourism

The Wadi Rum Desert was first made known to the wider world 100 years ago by army officer and writer T. E. Lawrence, whose story is immortalized in the 1962 film Lawrence of Arabia. In today’s Wadi Rum, foreign tourists are nearly as easy to spot as Bedouins. In fact, Wadi Rum is one of Jordan’s biggest tourist attractions. This is no wonder, as the desert packs a beautiful variety of colourful landscapes, from sand dunes to canyons and mountains. Visiting Wadi Rum is also an opportunity to learn about Bedouin culture, which the locals are eager to share, usually over multiple cups of tea.

Almost all tourists visit Wadi Rum on a tour, and almost all tour guides are Bedouins. Tourism has become a valuable source of income for the Bedouins, and this is also true for my hosts at Malakot. Even if the camp can grow its own food, it is hard to live in the 21st century without money.  During my stay, my hosts were in the process of finalizing a new set of rooms for tourists, and it is also possible for visitors to stay in a tent in the cover of the mountain, or in a typical Bedouin tent. For activities, Malakot offers the usual jeep and camel tours, as well as hiking in the desert mountains. An integral part of each visit is experiencing Bedouin culture and hospitality and learning about desert life.

But tourism is a double-edged sword. A lot of tourism in Wadi Rum is far from sustainable, and too often tourism results in changes of culture and lifestyle. Many Bedouins have abandoned keeping animals in order to become tour guides, which not only makes the experience shallow for tourists, but it also makes the locals dependent on tourism. As a result, the last few years have been very difficult, because the civil war in neighbouring Syria has led to a drop in tourism in the whole region, which in turn has drastically reduced the income of those working with tourism.

My hosts at Malakot show that there is a balance between tourism and tradition, and that tourism can make the desert dwellers’ lives easier without damaging the local culture or environment. Self-sufficiency, keeping animals and growing food makes Malakot more resilient to drops in the number of tourists. It is the combination of traditional knowledge, modern technology and tourism that make 21st century desert life in Wadi Rum possible, while helping preserve Bedouin culture, knowledge and identity.