Egypt is unique in that it forms a land bridge between Africa and Eurasia and has been crossed and re-crossed by migratory peoples since the dawn of time. Some of those people found the land good and stayed. About 5000 B.C. or earlier agriculture was introduced in the Nile Valley and has continued to the present time changing its character into what is now essentially a man-made environment. The people who did this still live in the Nile Valley and still till its rich soil.
The Western Desert was crossed by the caravan routes of people from the Western Sahara, some of whom stayed for longer or shorter periods of time depending on the benefits such as good grazing or opportunities for raiding the rich caravans from the Nile Valley. Some of the people who live today in the oases of the Western Desert are descended from these pastoral nomads and raiders. However, it is only in Siwa Oasis that there are Berbers who still speak the Berber language. People from the Nile Valley have also settled in the oases. Along the Mediterranean Coastal Desert, the land was settled by Arabs who came from the Arabian Peninsula in the wake of the conquest of Egypt by Amr Ibn el-Aas in the seventh century.
In the southern part of the Eastern Desert live a Hamitic people whose origins are lost in the mists of time. These people are the Bisharin who speak a unique language called Beja. The Bisharin share their territory with a group of people of Arab origin called the Rashida, who travel from the Sudan with their camels. Further north the tribes are Bedouin Arabs who have migrated over the centuries from the Arabian Peninsula. To the northeast on the Sinai Peninsula, the people are also Arabs.
All of these diverse diverse groups interact in one way or another with the land on which they live. In the Nile Valley, the people substantially changed the environment from a rich natural river oasis to an equally rich cultivated river oasis. In other parts of Egypt, such a change has not been possible so the people who live on the land have found it necessary to conserve the resources they have in order to maximize the benefits they gain from those resources.
Conservation, therefore, was traditionally a matter of maintaining the fauna and flora in order to preserve their way of life. It is not so much what they do, but what they do not do. Instead of cutting down living trees to obtain fodder, the branches are shaken so that the leaves, on which the goats and sheep feed, fall to the ground. Cutting trees for charcoal is also frowned upon. Hunting wild animals is generally limited to the number of animals needed for food. Harvesting plants for food, fuel or medicine is also more or less regulated. The pastoral nomad knows only too well that if his flocks overgraze an area, there will be fewer plants the next time there is rain.
With the advent of modern technology and more government intervention, such as the introduction of health clinics and schools in villages and towns, land use patterns are changing and many of the formerly nomadic and semi-nomadic people of Egypt are now living in settlements. The old ways of conserving the often-fragile ecosystems are no longer sufficient. The Government of Egypt is introducing some innovative programs through which the people will maintain an interest in their environment and culture and in the importance of maintaining and preserving them.