ABSTRACT
By way of introduction to a book dealing with the environment of Saudi Arabia I thought it of interest for the reader to learn about some of the more important, and mostly European, travellers and explorers who were drawn by the mysteries of the Orient, and specifically to the region now known as Saudi Arabia. Several of these desert adventurers made important environmental observations and their tales of travel in the desert encouraged others in their footsteps. Indeed, their exploits seem to have caught the imagination of modern-day adventurers who wonder, no doubt, how anyone could possibly manage without a 4 × 4 truck (Barger, 2000). But manage they did, and even though the golden age of exploration was soon over, and oil men in their planes had surveyed the whole country for black gold, much still remains to be discovered about the Kingdom’s environment and adventures are still to be had. Of course, the view of the environment presented here is decidedly Western and Orientalist and the commodification of the environment has become a pervasive theme of the Kingdom’s development trajectory. How this harsh desert environment is perceived by the declining numbers of badu is, as yet, an unresearched question – the other side of a fascinating coin. The term “bedouin,” is actually an Anglicisation of badawi, or badu in the plural, and is used to distinguish the nomadic Arab of the desert from those in villages and oases.
