No abstract

Ecotourism is one of the fastest growing sectors of tourism, denoting responsibility to the environment and a duty to respect and develop local cultures. Its development can cause positive and negative impacts, hence its premise is to find a balance between various impacts with an aim to preserve cultural integrity, ecological processes and biological diversity. This paper examines ecotourism as a form of sustainable development for Egyptian communities aiming to manage diverse resources such that economic, social and environmental needs are fulfilled. The case study lies in El-Omayyad biosphere reserve, a protected area designated by UNESCO in 1981. It lies in the western Mediterranean coastal desert of Egypt and possess a variety of flora, fauna and human settlements. The coastal area has witnessed a boom of resort construction, since the 1980s and continuing to date. The area has been divided into fractions of so called 'tourist villages'. These developments are occupied a mere couple of months per year and have ignored the economic, social and environmental fabric of the area. The reserve presents a further challenge, namely the Bedouin culture and the restrictions of a protected area. This research builds an appraisal tool able to capture the unique elements of the area, addressing the abovementioned challenges along with lessons learnt from the unresponsive recurring developments. To analyze the case study, data sets of physical characteristics, environmental, social and economic values were collated through governmental reports, prior research studies and field observations, corroborated by informal interviews with the locals to highlight crucial issues affecting tourism. For a comprehensive sustainable development in the area, the tool developed in this paper can be used by local government and organizations both in Egypt and other developing nations witnessing similar types of development in order to improve the physical and social environments.

At recent times, rapid urbanization growth occurs in numerous cities, thus this creates many issues, leading to local ecological degradation. So, an evaluation tool has been proposed to measure this ecological balance issue (EBI) to assess the urban sustainability of a city which is an Ecological Footprint Analysis (EFA) tool. This paper aims to measure the imbalance of consumption/production of built-up land in Alexandria city by using the EFA tool. In order to assess a holistic picture of the urban sustainability of built-up land, the researcher collected all the relevant data during this time-series (2005-2019) from the local authorities. In the accounts of ecological footprint (EF), the parameters of built-up land are set as equal to those of cropland, based on the assumption that built-up land is totally converted from cropland. However, built-up land may be derived from other types of land use, but the cropland ranks as the most productive use. So, one of the objectives of this paper is to compare between the builtup land and cropland to ascertain the extent of loss on cropland. The researcher concludes that the Ecological Footprint (EF) of built-up land is larger than the bio-capacity (BC) of built-up land, resulting in an existing ecological balance issue (ecological deficit), this can be considered as urban unsustainable pattern. Consequently, the researcher has been suggested guidelines and recommendations responding to the final results of measurements so that more decisions can be taken to move towards the urban sustainability progress by observing the local realities for Alexandria's vision of 2050.

With fast urbanization, numerous cities are confronting different environmental issues, leading to local environmental degradation. It is basic to make a scientific assessment so that convenient solutions can be proposed by looking at the local realities. Numerous assessment strategies have been suggested such as emerge analysis, material flow analysis, data development analysis and ecological footprint analysis. Among them, ecological footprint analysis (EFA) has been implemented as a useful analytical and planning tool for assessing urban sustainability in numerous cities. The aim of this research is to use one of the EFA components that is the built-up land footprint (EFBuilt-up land) to evaluate the sustainability in Alexandria, Egypt, in terms of settlements. In order to assess a sophisticated picture of EFBuilt-up land of Alexandria, the researchers will collect all relevant data for the years 2005 to 2017 and calculate the EFBuilt-up land and BCBuilt-up land during this time-series (2005-2017). The research concludes that the Alexandria's EFBuilt-up land exceeds its bio-capacity (BCBuilt-up land), resulting in an ecological deficit (EFD). Consequently, the element of built-up land in Alexandria is considered an unsustainable system. Finally, the researcher will propose guidelines to respond to the findings so that the city can shift towards a sustainable evolution direction for Alexandria's vision of 2050.

The current study aims to shed light on the often-overlooked Islamic history and its lasting legacy, countering the dominant western discourse. It seeks to highlight the creativity, innovation, and technology that emerged from the rich classical Islamic heritage. The remarkable civilization forged by Muslim scholars and scientists across various fields of human knowledge was only made possible due to their profound belief and religious duty to promote creativity in human existence. Therefore, the current research aims to present, a philosophical study of innovation and creativity based on the Qur’ān and Sunnah supported by classical and modern Islamic literature. This study also deploys an analytical and descriptive approach to conduct an analysis of present literature on Islamic origin. Moreover, this article is a scholarly attempt to demystify the principles and values that regulate the philosophy of creativity and innovation in Islām. Additionally, it presents an Islamic view on Muslim’s existing moral issues of innovation, creativity, and technology by drawing upon the teachings and principles of Qur’ān and Sunnah. To achieve, the proposed goals of this article, many Islāmic texts that urge innovation, creativity, and pay a special concern to the talented and skilled, were consulted. Hence, the research determined that Islamic heritage has a lot to contribute to the modern conceptualization of innovative and creative human life, which motivates Muslims’ to compete with others in this regard. Consequently, there is no such thing in Islam that prevents a Muslim from excelling in technology, which brings benefits and repels harm, while following the principles and teachings of the Qur’ān and Sunnah.