United Arab Emirates

The Emirates combine the sandy desert of the interior, with red dunes that reach great height at Liwa, the Hajar mountains in the east, shared with Oman, and a Persian Gulf coast of shallow, warm, hypersaline water. That apparently inhospitable shoreline hides extensive seagrass meadows and grey mangrove stands that work as fish nurseries and bird refuges. The gulf islands hold colonies of terns and Socotra cormorants, and hawksbill turtle nesting beaches. Inland, the oases of Al Ain, watered by the traditional falaj system, keep palm groves thousands of years old, and the wadis of the Hajar hold pools where fish and amphibians adapted to extreme aridity survive. In the middle of Dubai, the Ras Al Khor wetland supports flamingos in full view of the skyscrapers.