DNHG Lecture: 3,000km across the Empty Quarter by Dr Gary Brown

Описание: Speaker: Dr Gary Brown
Date: 22 September 2025
Title: 3,000km across the Empty Quarter

Talk Abstract:
The talk gives an overview of the natural history of the Empty Quarter and its fringes based on the personal experience of the speaker over two decades.


The Empty Quarter (Rub’ al Khali)
The largest sand sea (amalgamation of sand dunes) in the world.
Situated mainly in the south/ south-east of Saudi Arabia (KSA), but also includes the southern half of the UAE as well as the adjacent parts of Oman and Yemen, covering an area of at least 550,000 km².

Elaboration of the Lecture:
The Empty Quarter is often regarded as the quintessential “desert landscape” characterised by endless sand dunes and sparse or no vegetation. The latter is partly true for the extensive plains that interrupt the dunes but not necessarily for the sand dunes themselves.
The forbidding landscape also appears to be devoid of animal life, but wake up in the early morning and walk over the dunes, and in many places, it is hard not to miss the numerous tracks and trails created by creatures great and small.
Perhaps somewhat surprisingly, there are a number of wells, pools and even man-made lakes in the Empty Quarter, some of which act as a magnet for wildlife.



Biography of the Speaker:
Dr Gary Brown has an advanced academic degree (post PhD) in the arid land ecology of north eastern Arabia.
He combines long-standing academic experience, including numerous (over 60) research papers in internationally peer-reviewed scientific journals and book chapters (including in the recent Natural History of the Emirates book), with a substantial involvement in consultancy work.
Accumulated 40 years of practical international experience in environmental assessments, conservation planning and land resource management in countries of the Arabian Peninsula - in particular UAE, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar and Saudi Arabia – (as of September 2025, exactly 30 years!), and parts of Europe.
He possesses detailed knowledge of the flora and vegetation of the Arabian Peninsula, Britain, central Europe and the Canary Islands, including specialised habitat surveys, habitat restoration (in particular deserts) and restoration of contaminated land, such as oil and heavy metal-polluted areas.
Gary also has a good grasp of the lichen flora of Britain, central Europe and the Arabian Peninsula. Furthermore, he has detailed knowledge of the birds of Europe and the Arabian Peninsula as well as an overview of the reptiles and amphibians in those regions.

Gary has been substantially involved in conservation work with international organisations (e.g. UNESCO) over the past decades, especially in the Arabian Peninsula (Oman, UAE, Kuwait, Qatar). He is currently senior advisor to the KSA Government for the United Nations-funded desert restoration programme resulting from the Gulf War.

​Apart from working on various giga-projects in Saudi Arabia (most notably NEOM), Gary also undertakes a lot of projects in the UAE, where he worked for several years in ERWDA (now called the EAD).



//

For more information on DNHG'g public talks, kindly refer to DNHG Lecture web page: https://www.dnhg.org/lectures.html