Why Deserts Matter Too!

During our travels we have been lucky enough to spend some time in the worlds deserts from the mighty Sahara through to some of the lesser know and explored Deserts of India, Iran and Mongolia.

Deserts are surprisingly bio diverse - but it is not in your face - you have to be patient and give it time to come to you. When you first step out of your 4x4 they often look like areas of scrub and sand - but stay still and give it time and the landscape explodes with life, birds of prey, vultures, shrews and voles, stunning beetles, lizards and snakes. Stunning colourful plants and flowers, and insects galore - it’s all there. So next time you are thrashing around in your 4X4 spare a thought for what you might be squashing - Deserts are fragile ecosystems and can take hundreds of years to self repair.

They are often home to Nomadic tribes who understand how to work with nature and they have existed in harmony for thousands of years, let’s all do our bit to help this continue for thousands more.

If you do get a chance to go to the Lut Desert in South Eastern Iran look out for the coral fossils, indicating this was once a shallow tropical sea. We’ll write more about Deserts in a future article, and our trips across the Gobi and Lut deserts. Another place to look for coral fossils is in the High Arctic on Devon Islands - not where you would expect to find a former tropical shallow sea.

We hope to publish a page or two soon on Flora and Forna of desert environments.