Today is a very sad day, and here’s why.

Once a month we come for 2-3 hours drive in Al Batayih area – Sharjah. It is a part of the desert that leans on Maleha, an area of ​​archeological significance. As usual, before the drive we do a safety briefing as always. One of the main parts of our briefing says that in the desert we leave only tracks and good memories, because we are nothing but the guests there and we should behave this way. One of the main rules is to no disturb desert life. No creatures must be harmed and it is not allowed any kind of littering but degradable waste considered as food for desert creatures. We have 0 tolerance rule for littering.

OK nothing spectacular, all serious clubs more or less have such a policy and many organize desert cleanings and various actions to preserve and keep the pristine creations of Mother Nature.

This morning upon arrival we spotted a bulldozer some 500 meters in the desert. We didn’t pay too much attention because we thought some cool project was happening near the road. Upon arrival we helped a local family stucked in the sand for whole night. After completing all the drive preparations we went through the theoretical part before driving. After that we headed in a well known direction. We noticed bulldozer tracks in unusual places. We didn’t think it was a diversion, we just bypassed them and moved on. At one point we spotted a vehicle and several people around. We usually help everyone we meet in the desert if our help is needed, purely for human reasons and solidarity. We reached them and asked if everything was ok, they said it was all ok. We continued driving and soon realized that the entire desert in this area was literally dug up. Looking at it from the perspective we promote to our members literally an ecocide just happened. Is not only demolished habitat of animals and plants, but the whole quadrant is brutally plowed. If we only take into account that just few kilometers down the desert is an archeological site and center, this is a great risk that some archeological remains or other trace of local culture could have been found and destroyed by bulldozer.

We thought deeply this morning, how it is possible that someone allowed bulldozers to brutally massacre this beautiful area. Even more sad is the smile of the people from the beginning of the article to whom we rushed to help, who are probably involved in this “project” as contractors. They did not return our good intentions, on the contrary, they decided to remain silent and put us in danger of encountering an excavation at the top or behind a dune we had not seen. I don’t know if they would have laughed if someone had been seriously injured or, God forbid, killed.

In any civilization they would put some kind of sign, warning or any signal that something is happening and that someone might lose their life.

Please be careful if you enter this area and I advise you to go somewhere else. All we have to do is get away from Sharjah and enjoy the photos when the deserts were beautiful and not plowed. At that time, we did our best to preserve that beauty, but it seems that only serious off-roaders care about it.

Offroaders be careful, this whole area is full of this type of traps!!!