Jordan’s Badia, that arid eighty-five percent of the country’s land surface stretching east from the highlands to the borders of Syria, Iraq and Saudi Arabia, is a place of awesome and challenging beauty. From the basalt-black extinct volcanoes near the Syrian border to the dramatic cliffs, sands and mountain peaks around the fabled Wadi Rum, the Badia is a unique and integral part of Jordan’s natural and social heritage. It has been said that whatever else may change “there will always be a Badia”. This is true, but it is also the case that the Badia itself is undergoing change and that the pace of change, which has been gathering speed in recent decades, is set to accelerate. The exploration for, and perhaps the exploitation of, reserves of oil shale and uranium ore will have a dramatic effect on a traditional way of life. A century ago the Badia was a land of peace and tranquillity; no noise was heard apart from the padding feet of the camel and no light pollution at night obscured the brilliance of the stars and the softer reflections of the waxing and waning moon. The Badia was a divide, separating the western and eastern arcs of the Fertile Crescent, and a trading bridge, traversed and guarded by the Bedouin, linking the centres of population. The Bedouin were not only traders but also, of course, herders of camels, sheep and goats. They understood the desert, how to live in it and how to sustain those resources on which their livelihoods depended and which their limited technologies could exploit.

But as the twentieth century progressed, the way of life of the Badia changed, usually through the actions of organisations and people who lived elsewhere or with the use of technologies and ideas provided by them. The changes have been many and varied: most of the Bedouin of the north-east Badia left their camels, their sheep and their tents, and took up residence in the thirty or more villages south of the Syrian border and in what has become the major ‘Bedouin city’ of Mafraq; roads, oil pipelines and government offices were constructed; people made increasing use of the expanding education and health services; the security forces became an important source of Bedouin employment; the Bedouin started to travel by truck and pick-up; phosphates and other minerals were mined; surface water was dammed and groundwater was pumped, some as far as Amman; people began to see the wind and the sun not just as problems but as sources of power; and the cities of the highlands began to use the desert as a dumping ground for waste.