As governments, corporations, organizations and individuals throughout Arabia demonstrate increasing concern for environmental matters and struggle to come to terms with the issues, they are expressing, in part, their inner feelings that the rush for modernity has created almost as many problems as it has solved. There is a growing awareness of the need to conserve what remains of the peninsula's natural world and of the urgent necessity to ensure that today's young people gain a deeper appreciation of the region's wildlife so that they may take over the responsibility of protecting an inestimably valuable natural heritage.

What relevance do such thoughts have to eco-tourism or wildlife travel in Arabia, the central theme of this issue? They provide a background against which the conservation movement has been working in Arabia and perhaps help to explain the increasingly powerful support that wildlife conservation and environmental protection is receiving. The desire to conserve nature, and to protect wildlife, runs deep in the hearts of many Arabian people. Not alone is it an important element of Islam, but it is also a vital aspect of Arab culture and heritage.

Despite the oil-age, notwithstanding the rise in population, and in defiance of the global impact of man, Arabia still possesses many natural gems. There are places where wildlife reigns supreme and where man seldom ventures. There are places where nature has been protected from the potentially devastating impact of direct human interference and there are species that would no longer inhabit the peninsula if it was not for man's efforts to turn back the clock and to regain something of Arabia's pre-oil natural wealth. The challenge facing us all is how to ensure that wildlife continues to flourish in the deserts, mountains and seas of Arabia. Unless nature and wildlife remain at the top of the agenda, as a valued and appreciated natural resource, it seems likely that uncontrolled developments and harmful activities will continue to erode away at the edges of natural Arabia until little of what now exists remains. As for turning back the clock, there would be little chance of that happening without the great public support that projects such as Operation Oryx demand.

The worldwide tourism industry is likely to double in size over the next ten years. By 2010 almost a billion people a year will be taking international journeys. Across the whole range of the tourism industry, eco-tourism is its fastest growing sector. There is little doubt that visitors to Arabia will show an increasing interest in the region's natural assets. Arabia has a great deal to offer in this regard, as the pages of this magazine amply illustrate. Wise management of these resources, stimulated by a growing appreciation of their real value in monetary terms, as well as their irreplaceable importance at the centre of Arabian traditions and culture, will hopefully lead to successful policies of protection for nature combined with, and perhaps funded in part by, sustainable eco-tourism. The alternative seems to be an uncontrolled race to exploit wildlife, leading, as has happened in so many places around the world, to a killing of the goose that laid the golden egg!

Professor Abdulaziz H. Abuzinada