The controversial plan to turn a desert green

Ties van der Hoeven’s ambitions are nothing if not grand. The Dutch engineer wants to transform a huge stretch of inhospitable desert into green, fertile land teeming with wildlife.

His sights are set on Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula, an arid, triangle-shaped expanse that connects Africa with Asia. Thousands of years ago it was bursting with life, he said, but years of farming and other human activity have helped turn it into a barren desert.

Van der Hoeven is convinced he can bring it back to life.

He has spent years fine tuning an initiative aimed at restoring plant and animal life to roughly 13,500 square miles of the Sinai Peninsula, an area slightly bigger than the state of Maryland. The goal: to suck up planet-heating carbon dioxide, increase rainfall and bring food and jobs to local people.

He believes it is the answer to a slew of huge global problems. “We are destroying our planet in a way which is scary,” he told CNN. “The only holistic way out of this situation is with large-scale ecological regeneration”

So-called desert regreening projects are not new, and this is one of a number around the world seeking to transform arid landscapes. Many aim to halt desertification — the creeping degradation of dry lands — a phenomenon the United Nations calls a “silent, invisible crisis that is destabilizing communities on a global scale.

But the concept is also controversial; critics say transforming deserts is unproven, enormously complex and could negatively affect water and weather in ways we cannot predict.

The birth of the plan

Van der Hoeven’s background may seem unlikely for someone intent on saving the world. As a hydraulic engineer at Belgian dredging company DEME, he worked on projects including building artificial islands in Dubai.

But in 2016, the course of his career changed when he was pulled into a venture to help the Egyptian government restore shrinking fish populations in Lake Bardawil, a saltwater lagoon in northern Sinai, separated from the Mediterranean by a narrow sandbar. It used to be more than 100 feet deep but is now less than 10 feet deep in parts, as well as hot and salty.

Within a few weeks, van der Hoeven devised a plan to open up the lagoon by creating tidal inlets and dredging “tidal gullies” to get more seawater flowing through, making it deeper, cooler, less salty and more full of marine life.