Blame it on the sushi. The rising popularity of the Japanese delicacy has brought the northern bluefin tuna to the brink of extinction, while at the same time profoundly altering the dynamics of fishing in the Mediterranean.

On June 9, the European Commission closed the Mediterranean bluefin tuna season, which had opened just three weeks earlier, because the annual quota had already been caught — predominantly by the ultra-efficient industrial fishing vessels sailed by Spain and France. At 13,500 tonnes, the 2010 quota was already set 40 percent lower than 2009 — a concession to environmental organizations, which had argued for a complete ban on bluefin fishing this year. For them, the European Union’s decision to halt bluefin fishing is too little, too late.

The Mediterranean’s stock of bluefin has shrunk to less than 15 percent of its original size due to overfishing.

“Bluefin tuna must be given a break,” said Sergi Tudela, head of fisheries at the World Wildlife Federation — Mediterranean. He advocates a global trade ban as the only way to ensure a sustainable tuna fishing industry in the Mediterranean. But the latest fishing ban applies only to EU countries — non-European fishermen will continue to fish the waters. Greenpeace believes that European boats will circumvent the ban by flying non-EU flags and gravitating to territorial waters off the North African coast, which are harder to regulate. 

Japan, which receives around 80 percent of the world’s tuna catch, has repeatedly moved to block an international tuna trade ban by the United Nations. Similarly, few Mediterranean countries are volunteering to give up a lucrative source of income, as tuna prices have shot up in recent years with the global popularity of sushi. A ton of the fish now sells for $1,000, up from $300 in 2005.

On the other side of the coin, declining supplies have had a deep impact on local fishing communities, especially in North Africa, where fishermen employ smaller vessels and outdated technology. In Morocco, where fishing is a pillar of the agricultural industry, tuna catches dropped 96 percent between 2006 and 2007, from 8,800 tons to 343 tons, leading to the discontinuation of local tinned tuna brand Tam. 

Some North African countries have increased measures to protect their dwindling fish resources. In April 2010, Tunisia passed a bill aimed at preventing illegal fishing in its territorial waters, where a tuna recovery program was initiated in the summer of 2009. Foreigners found fishing in these waters will be fined up to 300,000 dinars ($196,860), while Tunisian fisherman will be penalized up to 100,000 dinars ($65,620).

However, Africa remains a weak spot for the prevention of bluefin exploitation. The Gulf of Sidra off Libya, previously the largest breeding ground for Mediterranean bluefin, has been identified as the greatest site of illegal fishing in recent years, and yields approximately 40 percent of total bluefin catch.

While Libya has relatively scant fishing production itself, the country sells major European companies access to these waters. As a result, it has been one of the most vocal opponents of a bluefin fishing ban, which it believes disadvantages the developing nations that rely on the trade. 

At the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species held in March 2010, Libya’s delegate forced a vote on the matter before any debate had taken place. The result was 68 votes against and 20 for, with 30 abstentions, clearly demonstrating that “governments are not ready to adopt trade bans as a way to protect species,” a spokesman for the UN told international press. In the minds of environmentalists, this nearsightedness has sealed the fate of the bluefin tuna. 

 “I see more tourists every year,” smiles tourist guide Abdul Razzak Homsi when asked about the prospects of his business. “Three years ago, museums in Damascus were empty. Now Europeans are queuing at the gates.”

Statistics from the Syrian Ministry of Tourism show that in the first five months of this year, the number of “tourist arrivals” in Syria rose to 3.1 million, a whopping 65 percent increase compared to the same period a year earlier. The figure is divided into three groups: Arab foreigners (1.7 million), non-Arab foreigners  (900,000) and Syrian expatriates (600,000). Although “tourist arrivals” is a loose definition — the ministry simply measures all arrivals and calls them tourists — unless Damascus suddenly became the world business conference capital, tourists are evidently flocking into Syria in large numbers.

Tourism was “a bit static” in the years following the 2005 assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri, says Osama al-Nouri, general manager of Damascus-based tour operator TransAsia Travel and Tourism, “but the past couple of years have witnessed the return of Syria, and Lebanon, as  major destinations.”

The word’s out in the West

Syria sees two types of visitors, says Nouri: Arabs who come for recreation, shopping and, to a lesser extent, religious sites, and Westerners — mostly Europeans — who seek the mystique of the Orient in Syria’s rich history, culture, world-class architectural sites like Palmyra and Krak des Chevaliers, and traditional Arab hospitality. 

Although the majority of tourists visiting Syria still come from the Arab/Gulf market — 59 percent of all arrivals in 2009 — people from outside the Arab world are increasingly finding their way to Damascus. According to Nouri, “whereas the Arab market is increasing by 6 to 9 percent per year, numbers of European and American tourists are going up by more than 25 percent per year.”

Potential for profit

With all these tourists come opportunities for local business. Tourist guide Homsi is one of 889,000 Syrians currently employed in the tourism sector — 11.5 percent of the work force. Over the past 18 years, he has slowly moved away from guiding flocks of tourists to teaching cultural heritage management at the Damascus Tourist Institute, and is now converting an old Damascene house into an art gallery where, he says, he will be able to combine his love for all things art and antique with commercial activity.

“Whenever I take tourists to see Syrian culture and art, they are very interested,” he says. “And surprised: they simply have no idea it exists.”

There are several other entrepreneurially-minded traders in Damascus’ tourist markets angling for original ways to make a buck from visitors, such as the owner of a shop called “Beebread,” who explains in a conspiratorial voice that Syria has many unique plants with medicinal qualities that Westerners have yet to discover. His shop sells low-sugar honey to locals, and has a growing customer-base in tourists buying honey-based facial cream and organic digestive pills manufactured according to a secret recipe.

But Homsi and Beebread’s innovative tactics are an exception among Syria’s tourism traders, who mostly follow the tried-and-tested business model of the clustered shawarma shop. Along Damascus’s biblical Straight Street, for example, most salesmen seem content to eek out a living selling the same pots and pans as their neighbors do. Although the luxury five-star Tadamora Palace hotel recently opened in Palmyra, commercial activity at the country’s prime archeological site still revolves mainly around groups of Bedouin that ride around on old motorbikes selling soda cans and checkered shawls. As one wandering tourist put it recently, “where are the hot-air balloon rides, the mountain bike rentals?”

“There is a huge gap” between potential and reality, admits Nouri, who explains that locals’ reluctance to exploit tourism possibilities may be a legacy of the past, when the state was the one and only player in many fields. Nowadays, he says, “business opportunities are enormous, particularly in the areas of eco-tourism and event management. The sites, accommodation and restaurants are there, but there are more and more people that are looking for activities like festivals, theater shows… the Ministry of Tourism is genuinely interested in promoting such activities.”

Bedroom boom

One sector that has been doing particularly well is the hotel industry, although the year saw a bit of a slow start, with occupancy at 49 percent in the first quarter of 2010 as opposed to 61 percent a year earlier. Though small luxury boutique hotels have popped up all over the Old City and the last decade has seen considerable investment in high-end hotels, there is still room to grow, says Julian Crane, director of marketing for the Damascus Four Seasons Hotel.

“There is a big opportunity for mid-range hotels and mid-range pricing,” he says. “There are not enough four-star hotels, for example.” But high-end hotels like the Four Seasons will remain in demand as well, he says, “as long as the demand for this destination in terms of commerce and leisure continues to grow. And there is no reason why it shouldn’t. Syria has an exotic mystique about it that people will continue to be interested in.”

Tourism is fast becoming a pillar of the Syrian economy, constituting 11.2 percent of the country’s gross domestic product in 2009 and expected to rise to 13 percent of GDP by 2019, according to the World Travel and Tourism Council. Still, it is a developing industry and there are obstacles to overcome, such as a lack of infrastructure and a shortage of skilled personnel. But as long as the region stays stable — a vital prerequisite for growth mentioned by nearly everyone Executive spoke to — the sector is likely to continue to grow as a major market.

“There are 5,000 mosques, 700 churches, 50 synagogues and 10,000 archeological sites in Syria,” says Homsi. “Most of them have yet to see a tourist.”

Egypt reacted furiously, even threatening war, when five upstream Nile countries signed an agreement in May denying Egypt its veto power over any project anywhere along the world’s longest river, a privilege it won in a 1959 treaty.

Cairo’s concern about developments upstream is understandable, as the Nile provides 97 percent of the country’s water. But it may also be a touch hypocritical for Egypt to deny others the right to use the river for irrigation and power generation, when it has done exactly that for decades.

Since the 1960s in particular, Egypt has invested billions of dollars in harnessing the Nile’s power. The country’s most famous water engineering work is, of course, the Aswan High Dam, the world’s biggest when it was inaugurated in 1971. The dam has prevented the river from flooding, allowing farmers to grow multiple crops per year, and created the immense reservoir of Lake Nasser.

In 1997, Egypt’s current President Hosni Mubarak launched another colossal project, and one that could not have existed without the Aswan High Dam: the South Valley Development Project, better known as the Toshka Project. Named after a natural depression some 225 kilometers south of Aswan, this massive development scheme foresees pumping Nile water from Lake Nasser into a 210-kilometer network of newly constructed canals to develop and cultivate 540,000 feddan (or 2,268 square kilometers) of desert land.

In the distant future, Egypt’s amount of cultivable land could be doubled if the government’s dream of creating a “second Nile Valley” becomes a reality. To do this, they would need to connect Lake Nasser and Toshka with Egypt’s string of western oases. Considering such grand ambitions, it comes as no surprise that the Egyptian press has hailed the project as “Mubarak’s Pyramids.”

Some critics even claim it should never have been started. For example, former Minister of Construction and Housing Hasaballah al-Kafrawi, defined the project as “useless and a waste of billions,” with the ‘billions’ referring to both gallons of water and dollars.

Bringing the desert to life

Situated in the south western corner of Lake Nasser, the Toshka Project’s engine is the $500 million Mubarak Pumping Station, which is said to be the world’s largest. Its 24 turbines can pump up to 25 million cubic meters of water per day into the 50-kilometer long Sheikh Zayed Canal. Both were completed around 2003. Named after the late ruler of the United Arab Emirates, the canal splits into two main networks; the northern part was completed some five years ago and the southern branch is slated to be inaugurated this August.

As former deputy chairman of Egypt’s National Water Resources Center, Dia el-Din el-Quosy supervised the birth of the Toshka Project.

“There is a big controversy about Toshka,” he said, sipping a tea in Cairo’s Groppi Café. “People complain that too much money has been spent. But the government had invested some 7 billion Egyptian pounds ($1.27 billion) when I left in 2003, and has not spent much more since.”

“People tend to forget that Toshka was no overnight decision. The project was first formulated in the 1960s and only presented to the public in the late 1990s,” he added.

According to Quosy, the project should be seen as part of the country’s “horizontal development” strategy. Egypt is running out of space. Some 95 percent of its population of around 80 million lives in the Nile delta, which represents but five percent of Egypt’s territory. As the Salam Canal did previously, the Toshka Project aims to lure people away from the densely populated Nile delta and the river banks.

 “The aim of Toshka is to create jobs by developing a core of economic activities, including mining, industry, tourism, as well as agriculture,” said Quosy. “In the future the region could be home to some 3 million Egyptians.”

 In laying the foundations for Toshka, the Egyptian government adopted a textbook liberal approach. The state played a facilitating role by developing the necessary infrastructure and offering an attractive investment climate to draw in the private sector, which in turn will build firms, farms and factories. The plan started well enough; for a bargain price of some $2,100 per square kilometer, most land was sold in no time.

According to the Ministry of Water Resources and Irrigation, some 1,430 square kilometers were allocated to a handful of major companies, including Prince Walid bin Talal’s Kingdom Holding, the Emirati firm Al Zahra, the Egyptian South Valley Development Company and Al Raghy Holding. Around 840 square kilometers along the project’s southern branches remain open to investors. So far, however, according to the ministry, only 147 square kilometers have been cultivated and nothing else has been developed — some claim even less land has been made available for agriculture. No doubt the recent credit crunch has made investors reluctant or unable to invest large amounts of money. Rumor has it, however, that some investors find it more lucrative to sell the land than to develop it.

“I agree that the project’s implementation may not have been perfect,” said Quosy. “First of all, there is too much emphasis on agriculture. Secondly, it seems that investors such as Prince bin Talal — whom I respect a lot — are more interested in the hotel business than in agriculture. Agriculture is a long term investment. If investors fail to develop the land, then I think the government will be forced to take it back and distribute it among other investors.”

Yet Quosy remains an advocate of the Toshka scheme. “We have the water, we have the land, all we have to do is work,” he said.

Not everyone agrees. According Mohamed Salama, professor of irrigation and hydraulics at the Cairo University, there are more fundamental problems involved.

“From an engineering project of view, it’s an excellent project: it is well made,” Salama said. “The problem is that the temperature at Toshka reaches up to 50 degrees. As the water is pumped into open canals, we have lost an enormous amount of water over the past five years due to evaporation. I estimate some 1,000 cubic meters a day. In addition, because of the high evaporation rate, crops need relatively more water. While farmers in the north need, on average, some 20 to 25 cubic meters per feddan per day, in the south they need up to twice as much.”

The test of time

The Egyptian government could have opted for constructing tunnels instead of canals to reduce the project’s average evaporation rate, but that would have made the project up to seven times more expensive.

“There is a social problem as well,” Salama continued. “To develop the region, you need people, and the idea is to move people from the over-populated north to the south.”

Given the heat and inhospitable climate, he said few would opt to make this choice, especially given the lack of facilities, such as hospitals and schools. “If the project is to be continued, I think it better to have people from southern Egypt work in Toshka, as they are used to the climate,” said Salama. Contrary to Quosy, Salama thinks it is best to stop the Toshka project sooner rather than later, instead of pouring in more water and money. “But what to do with the billions invested so far?” he asked.

Richard Tutwiler, head of the Desert Development Center at the American University of Cairo, just returned from a visit to Toshka and confirmed that so far little land has been developed. Although he agreed that some major question marks remain, he was hesitant to call for the project to be stopped right away.

“One major question is: will there be enough water?” said Tutwiler. “A river is a perfect irrigation and drainage system. You take out water, use it, and let it flow back into the river. The water is then reused further downstream. When you take out water to develop the desert you loose that advantage of a natural drainage system.”

He added that “desert developments” take at least 20 years, so the success of Toshka needs another decade to be determined.

There are also problems on the political front; Toshka has now become a highly sensitive (and as a result, taboo) subject. While Egypt’s newspapers continue to criticize upstream countries for wanting to develop Nile related projects, “Mubarak’s Pyramids” have largely vanished from the media’s radar. As a consequence, there is no public debate about the billions of gallons and dollars that have been spent so far and will be spent in the future.

That should perhaps come as no surprise, as we are talking about Mubarak’s legacy here. Just as his predecessors Gamal Abdel Nasser and Anwar el-Sadat did with the Aswan High Dam and Salam Canal, respectively, Mubarak attached his name and his reputation to a major water work that — on paper — has the potential to significantly alter the face of Egypt. The 81-year-old president does not want to be associated with the world’s biggest state-of-the-art pumping station and canal network if, at some point in the future, it becomes a white elephant abandoned and left to the desert.

If Cairo is the Hollywood of the Middle East, Beirut might aptly be called the region’s Vancouver, where canny filmmakers regularly recreate glamorous locations for a fraction of their on-location price. Lebanon may not churn out the cinema blockbusters that Egypt does, but it has successfully cornered a large section of the Middle East’s market for producing television commercials and music videos.

“I would say Lebanon has 60 percent of the whole region’s market share, excluding North Africa,” said Gabriel Chamoun, chief executive officer of The Talkies, a major Beirut-based production house, opened in 1988, which primarily produces television commercials. In North Africa, added Chamoun, commercials are generally produced locally.

Sten Walgren of The Gate — Lebanon’s only film processing center — told Executive that Lebanon produces as many as 80 music videos and 300 commercials annually. Before the worldwide economic recession took hold of the region, Walgren said those numbers were around 120 and 400 per year respectively.

“Ninety-five percent of the production houses here in Beirut are for television or commercials or music videos,” said  Pierre Sarraf, founder of production house ‘..né.à Beyrouth.’

Sarraf’s company — which also organizes the annual Lebanese Film Festival in Beirut — is one of the few in the country to make other film products, such as documentaries and feature films, though it finances these projects through producing between ten and fifteen high-paying music videos and television commercials per year.

Despite its narrow focus, the Lebanese film industry has prospered, attracting a large volume of business from around the region.  While filming and editing takes place in Lebanon, the clients of television commercials are generally advertising agencies based in Saudi Arabia or Dubai. Similarly, music videos are commissioned by record labels in the region, such as the $700 million Saudi-owned conglomerate Rotana.

Big budget productions

While there are no official figures, the film production industry in Lebanon easily rakes in tens of millions of dollars annually.

Chamoun said that at The Talkies, which films some 50 commercials annually, budgets for these projects can vary widely, between $60,000 and $500,000 depending on the client. Some shoots, he said, can bring in upwards of $1 million — though these have become rare in the current economic climate.

Leila Kanaan, a young director from Sidon who gained fame filming music videos for such Lebanese pop divas as Haifa Wehbe and Nancy Ajram, said music videos for A-list stars in the region can range anywhere from $150,000 to $400,000 or more. Her latest music video, “Wavin’ Flag” — a collaboration between Ajram and Somali-Canadian rapper K’naan for the World Cup —  easily cleared the $1 million mark.

“It’s a big industry and managers and singers are investing a lot in music videos because they do not just help to sell the CD: they also market the singer,” said Sarraf, whose firm often works with Kanaan. “The real revenue for the singer comes from the live concerts rather than selling CDs.”

For less prominent musicians, Kanaan said that music videos can cost between $60,000 and $100,000. For her own pay, Kanaan said that she charges $50,000 per music video or $10,000 per day of shooting for television commercials. Chamoun said most Lebanese directors he works with make between $2,000 and $10,000 per day of shooting. Mid-range salaries on set — such as for a focus puller, whose job is to keep the camera’s shot in focus during a shoot — run to around $350 per day.  Even low-end salaries, such as for a helper, are around $75, higher than daily wages for similar work in Lebanon.

Why Lebanon?

While prices for those 30-second TV spots and four-minute music videos might seem staggering to those unacquainted with the industry, they are significantly cheaper than the industry standard elsewhere. Chamoun said TV commercials can cost some two-thirds less to shoot in Lebanon than other locations, making Lebanon an attractive option for clients.

“We tend to give priority to Lebanon because it’s easier [to film] here and less expensive,”  said Sarraf, whose company occasionally films abroad.

When the financial crisis hit Dubai in 2009, some established Beirut production houses saw an increase in business as clients stopped opting to film in the emirate.

“When there used to be a lot of money in the market, they would rather go for convenience rather than savings,” Chamoun told Executive. “So they would shoot a lot in Dubai because the client happens to be there, the agency is there and it’s just more convenient.”

While on paper Dubai could look like a more attractive base for the film industry — with Abu Dhabi’s TwoFour54 and Dubai’s Media City providing a centralized infrastructure for film production — in the fallout of the economic crisis some Dubai firms began relocating or opening additional branches in Beirut.

Besides cost-saving, people in the industry say shooting in Lebanon has additional perks.

“I think Lebanon is the perfect place to shoot in the Middle East; we have the talents, the know-how and good taste in general,” said Kanaan.

Lebanon’s varied geography gives the country’s producers another edge, allowing them to film along the coast or in mountain villages that can sometimes pass for Europe, against the backdrop of Beirut’s skyline or among Roman ruins. Such diversity is lacking in the United Arab Emirates, where locations are confined to the desert and cityscapes.

Shaky footage

While Lebanon’s film production industry has survived the economic crisis thus far — with some production houses even benefitting — Lebanon’s occasionally unstable political situations continue to loom as a threat to its viability.

“We need to keep political stability — this is the worst thing that affects the industry,” said Sarraf. During the 2006 war, work came to a stop for production houses across the city. From the start of the war to the end of 2006, The Talkies produced only four commercials — an amount that would be created in just weeks during times of peace. The war and its aftermath quickly had clients looking to film elsewhere, afraid of what Lebanon’s future might hold.

“Even Lebanese people living in the Gulf were reluctant to come and shoot in Beirut,” said Chamoun, “every time there is a war we start from scratch again.”

Before the political situation worsened in 2005, the country was a favored destination for some European clients who wanted to use some of Lebanon’s more picturesque areas to replicate a European setting on screen at a much lower cost.  According to Chamoun, such clients accounted for between 30 and 35 percent of his company’s business in 2004.  However, the political turmoil which took hold of the country the next year would scare these clients away.  While Beirut film production houses have largely regained business from regional clients, jobs ordered from Europe are still few and far between.

And as the financial crisis pushed Dubai-based film production houses to set up shop in Beirut, Lebanon’s political instability has pushed some local outfits to open branches in more peaceful cities — such as Cairo — as a fallback for a worst-case scenario in Lebanon.

Across the country’s film production industry it is agreed that stability in Lebanon is the key to maintaining business. If peace holds and prices can be kept competitively low, the industry should keep its starring role in the region. If not, other countries, notably Turkey and Morocco, are waiting in the wings to take Lebanon’s spotlight.

“We tend to give priority to Lebanon because it’s easier [to film] here and less expensive”