Wildlife and Environment of Bir Tawil

With almost no rain and no permanent surface water, Bir Tawil's ecology depends on rare storms. When rain falls on the hills, it runs off into the wadis, soaking into their sandy beds. Plants root deep to reach this moisture, and animals follow the plants. Away from the wadis, the gravel plains are almost bare.

The characteristic tree of the Eastern Desert's wadis is the acacia, whose deep roots and small leaves let it survive long droughts. Acacias provide shade, fodder for camels and goats, and nesting sites for birds, and herders of the region have long depended on them. Drought-tolerant shrubs and grasses appear after rain and can carpet a wadi briefly before dying back.

Bir Tawil has never been the subject of a full biological survey. The fauna of the surrounding Eastern Desert, which the territory shares, includes desert gazelles, foxes adapted to the heat, hares, rodents such as gerbils and jerboas, lizards and snakes, scorpions and beetles. The corridor between the Nile and the Red Sea is also used by migratory birds, including raptors, on their journeys between Europe and Africa.

The greatest threat is informal gold mining. Small-scale miners commonly use mercury to bind gold, and mercury vapour and waste poison workers, soil, and the scarce groundwater on which every living thing in the region depends. Vehicle traffic damages fragile desert surfaces, and overgrazing around water points strips vegetation.

Stewardship of the desert, its water, and its environment is one of the commitments of the Imperial Government of Brendania for Bir Tawil. The Empire's founding narrative treats the desert as a severe landscape that demands competence, patience, and respect, and the Empire opposes the mercury pollution caused by unregulated mining.