Kari: Qatar. Qatar. Qatar.
Or we could just do Qatar.
Qatar.
Kari: Qatar is a country on the Arabian peninsula.
That's it. I want to be a falconer.
People survive in this desert landscape
for thousands of years.
Smells amazing in here.
And they are creating innovative
new ways to thrive here for thousands more.
The new desert design.
A new desert design. Exactly.
I'm Kari Byron.
Imagine living here, here, here.
I travel around the world
seeking out stories of inspiring people...
I mean, that's incredibly innovative.
This is a whole new way of farming.
...who are working on solutions
to some of the biggest questions of our time.
Thanks to oil and natural gas,
today, Qatar is one of the richest countries in the world.
The capital city of Doha is an international hub
for business, education and culture.
With all the technological conveniences
we expect of life in the 21st century,
it's hard to imagine this incredibly modern,
futuristic urban environment
sprang up in the last 25 years
in the middle of the desert.
Located in the middle east on the Arabian peninsula,
Qatar itself is a peninsula
about the size of the state of Connecticut.
It occupies mostly low lying desert
where temperatures can reach 120 degrees Fahrenheit
and less than four inches of rainfall every year.
Sweltering heat, lack of fresh water
and limited natural resources
make Qatar a challenging place to live.
So my question is, how do people make extreme places
like the desert inhabitable?
An hour south of Doha,
the sealine desert becomes a vacation hotspot
in the mild winter months.
There the old ways that help nomadic tribes
survive the harsh climate
are now celebrated over nostalgic luxury weekends.
People come to the desert to camp out.
They enjoy a good campfire. They enjoy the sand dunes.
I get it. I go to the beach every weekend for a cookout.
It was definitely the same.
We still try as much as we can to stay intact
with our ancestors way of living.
Archeologist Shaima Sherif studies Qatar's
earliest inhabitants,
which date back roughly 10,000 years.
If I show you my hand,
this roughly maps out Qatar as a state.
And this is Saudi Arabia down here?
Saudi would be here.
The Bedouin, the country Bedouin,
with the ones in the south region, the al Murrah,
we the northern Bedouin, the al Na'im tribe
and we had the town settlers.
Early Qatarians along the coast survived largely by fishing.
The southern Bedouin were nomadic,
raising herd animals and farming
wherever and whenever conditions allowed.
Whew, the elements are intense out here
between the wind and the sand and the heat.
How does that inform, say, the way people dress out here?
Traditionally, we wear cloaks.
We call them abayas for women and thobes for men.
This is a traditional Qatar abaya.
I thought you might like to try it on.
My hat is driving me bananas, so this is to be perfect.
Abayas are worn over clothes
with the... to cover the head.
The garments honor modesty in the Islamic religion,
but they also serve practical functions.
We can use it to cover our mouths,
to hide our face from the sand.
It's protective. It's very protective.
Traditionally, men wear a similar style of clothing
called the thobe and a headscarf or...
I expected it to be really hot underneath there,
but it's actually, it's... It's very cool.
Yeah, it's very breezy.
The loose fit keeps you cool by convection.
As the abaya or thobe flows in the wind,
air rises between the fabric and your skin,
which also means that a black robe
is as cool as any other color in the desert.
It's very functional, it's very easy.
You can go out in your pajamas
and just have your abaya on.
Do people do that? We do that.
[ Laughs ] We do.
Protecting yourself from the elements is one key
to surviving in the desert.
Another is finding food.
♪♪
That's it. I want to be a falconer.
Falconry began in the middle east
about 4,000 years ago as a means of hunting birds
and wild game.
Bedouins discovered they could harness
a falcons hunting prowess through training and Patience.
A diving falcon can reach speeds of up to 125 miles per hour,
snatching their prey with 200 pounds per square inch
of pressure in their talons.
That crunching on bones is intimidating.
That is a strong beak.
Falconry in itself is a tradition passed on
from Bedouin tribes here to the local townsman.
Modern falconry is a competitive sport in Qatar.
Prize birds can sell for as much as a million dollars.
We have state of the art hospitals for them.
They fly first class on planes. They have their own passports.
Wait? What? They have their own passport?
They can have their own passports.
Falcons are such important animals to us.
They helped us through tough times,
and it still continues to be part of who we are.
As Bedouins, as settlers in the Arabian Gulf
and specifically to Qatar,
hospitality is the core of our values.
It's the basic genetics of what we are.
So I'm not special? You invite everybody over for dinner?
We do invite everybody.
[ Laughs ]
Bedouin custom dictates that any desert traveler
that comes across your camp must be offered a place to rest
and refuel for the journey ahead.
What started as basic survival in this harsh environment
continues as one of the most important parts
of Qatari culture.
Coffee is a traditional symbol to Qatari hospitality,
and we always love it when the guest first arrives.
[ Speaks native language ] [ Speaks native language ]
Mmm.
That's different than any coffee I've ever tasted before.
It's light like tea, but it's got some spices in it.
Cardamom?
Cardamon and pinch of saffron. Saffron.
And I'll continue to serve it
until you shake your cup.
Like this? Just like this.
This means I'm finished? Means you're finished.
Because you know what this means at home for me?
What? I want more.
So...
[ Laughing ]
Etiquette drives every aspect of the meal.
Guests are to receive the best food available
via the last grain of rice
or the only animal left in the herd.
Tonight, we're enjoying a customary dish of spiced lamb
and rice with nuts and dried fruit.
So, before we eat, we always wash our hands
because we eat with our hands
and we always use our right hand.
Why the right hand?
Your left hand is used for other functions.
Okay.
Basically when you go to the bathroom.
So definitely use your right hand.
Yes.
Is there a technique here?
You try to make a ball with your fingers
and then you use your thumb. Yeah.
And like push it into your mouth.
♪♪
That's good.
The thumb technique, that's brilliant,
every bite takes a little bit different than the bite before.
It's almost like I got a new spice.
It's a beautiful sensory experience.
Traditionally, what did Qatari eat besides this?
The people that lived more on the seashore area near Doha
and... mostly had seafood.
And meat was mostly brought out for special occasions.
Oh, is this a special occasion? This is as special occasion.
It's very fancy. There's a lot of food.
This is the traditional way we end our evening
with some [Speaks native language]
So you just blow the smoke on you.
It's like incense. It's incense.
The Bedouin and other early Qatarians survived in the desert
for thousands of years.
Their lessons are still honored
and informed life here every day.
I feel so lucky to share the whole day with you
and learn so much about your culture and traditions.
It was wonderful to have you.
I'm so pleased to be able to share this.
You have to visit the souk to get authentic flavor of Doha.
It smells amazing in here.
♪♪
Kari: Qatar is roughly 90 percent desert,
long before oil transformed the economy
and made modern conveniences widely available,
finding food and other necessities
was key to daily life.
In a place where resources are limited,
where do you go to get all the things you need?
Historically, it meant traveling to a port village
to visit a market or souk.
The sea used to reach this point,
and this is actually the reason why we called it...
Amal al Shammari organizes cultural tours around Doha
in the city's historic market, Souq Waqif.
Souq Waqif means the standing souk
because the whole area used to be muddy.
So they couldn't sit down and show the products,
so they were standing most of the time.
And they were just standing, trading.
Yes. It's a very modern city,
but the souk is a real nod the traditional and its roots.
Yes, yes.
And you have to visit the souk
to get the authentic flavor of Doha.
The modern souk was built to look,
smell and sound as much as it would have a century ago
when Bedouins gathered here to trade livestock
and other goods like...
Amal: This one is like handmade. It's based on counting.
So it's all manual, old fashioned.
I would say women used to be really creative back then.
Very creative.
...Was a style of weaving
that incorporates geometric designs.
Bedouin women used it to craft everything from camel
harnesses to tent walls.
Okay, the main one in the middle, it's a tree.
It's like a pyramid, and they call it tower of John.
The main original one is this, the black and white
traditional... is made
with sheep wool and goat hair.
But because with time,
people wanted to have different designs.
That's why they came up with different colors like the yellow
and green and blue, and has been influenced
by the Syrian Iranian Islamic design as well.
This is the most traditional.
So if you wanted the original said,
you always go for this one,
these three designs.
It's mostly black, red and white.
Because of Qatar's unique position on the Gulf,
markets like Souq Waqif
became the intersection of trade routes on both land and sea.
And one local commodity drove Qatar's early economy, pearls
in the old days before oil discovery,
in the summertime, of course, we go in a big boat.
As a teenager, Saad Ismail al Jassim
began diving to the ocean floor
to harvest oysters for their pearls.
Diver used three things to dive.
A weight to take the diver down,
a basket to collect the oyster in.
Third one is a nose clip.
Oh, wow.
Diver takes two minutes underwater.
Long time.
Diving from sunrise to sunset
for three to four months in the sea.
Before Japanese culture pearls took over in the 1940s,
Arabian Gulf pearls were prized throughout Europe,
north Africa and Asia.
The lustrous gems became a key commodity for traders
along the maritime spice routes.
♪♪
Smells amazing in here.
Most of the products come from Iran and India
because they are the countries that famous with the spices.
Like many middle eastern foods, Qatari cuisine is influenced
by bold aromatic flavors like turmeric and coriander.
Those are huge cinnamon.
This is a natural one, so before they break them.
And perhaps most importantly,
cardamom and saffron
comes from a flower,
but to get these out of the flower,
it takes time and effort
because each flower has only two or three of this.
Can you believe it?
Once you have the saffron, it gives...
A beautiful yellow color.
That's why the coffee is yellowish.
You can smell it.
- Mmm. - Yeah.
Yeah, that smells familiar.
I think that's everything I've eaten since I've got here.
Spice shops aren't just for cooking.
You can also buy medicinal herbs
like chamomile or pumice stones for exfoliating skin.
We're getting beauty products.
We're getting cooking,
we're getting medicine, everything.
Yes. It's an old mini market, I would say.
Yeah.
Markets provided a place to buy,
sell and trade goods needed to survive in the desert.
But they also helped Qatari culture to grow and flourish.
Let's see. I'm going to need these for sure.
In many ways, Souq Waqif still does.
We have a very harsh environment,
we have a very hot summer.
How do you grow produce in the desert?
Kari: The population of Qatar's capital city, Doha,
is 1.6 million people and growing fast.
To keep a modern Metropolis functioning in the desert,
you have to find ways to address the biggest
and most obvious challenge.
You need fresh water.
99 percent of the country's water
comes from the Gulf, but that's saltwater.
So it has to go through a process called desalination
to make it usable.
Desalination plants in Qatar use two basic technologies
to turn seawater into fresh water,
either by heat to evaporate and distill fresh water,
or with membranes that filter out salt and other minerals.
It takes about three gallons of seawater
to make one gallon of fresh water.
Desalination produces 480 million gallons
of water a day for Qatar.
Now, if anything happened to those plants,
Doha would run out of water in only four hours.
Think about that next time you take that extra long shower.
Freshwater is key to another big challenge here, farming.
Only about one percent of the land
is suitable for farming,
which is why Qatar has to import 90 percent of its food,
but that's changing.
With new initiatives and pride in buying local,
Qatari grown food is a booming business.
So, how do you grow produce in the desert?
An hour north of Doha, Nasser al-Khalaf
and his family's company, Agrico farms,
grow organic fruits and vegetables
in sustainable greenhouses they've designed.
We have very harsh environment.
We have very hot summer, and we need to create
a proper environment for the plant.
So most of the things they will see,
it has to do with cooling.
Greenhouses are designed to hold heat in cold climates.
So Agrico had to adapt everything from the materials
to the colors and create air cooling systems.
I just felt a breeze, like a cooling breeze.
What is that?
This is the effect of the cooling pad system.
It's basically cells made of cotton.
The water goes through it, the hot air pass
through the water and becomes a cold air.
So you actually are using the heat to create the cool.
That's right.
The effect is called evaporative cooling.
Fans helped circulate the cool air,
reducing temperatures by half.
This single greenhouse goes up to 13,000 cucumbers,
each plant is strung up to increase airflow,
pruned to optimize growth
and watered by a timed drip irrigation system.
You can see the water that's coming out from the dripper.
The fertilizer is mixed with the water.
So it gets its nutrients from the water rather than the soil.
That's right.
It's called hydroponic farming.
Everything is organic.
We are using biological pesticide.
All the fertilizer are organic based,
and the growbag itself, it's the coco pit.
Ground, coconut shells hold plant roots
and conserve water.
Any waste water is also reused throughout the farm
to create humidity where needed.
What kind of yield can you get?
I mean, there's a lot of cucumbers
on each of these plants.
We're getting around 80 to 90 baskets per day
once the plants reach the peak production.
80 or 90 a day?
That's right. That's a lot.
That's just the single variety of cucumber.
Overall Agrico averages five tons of produce a day.
Nasser: We have around 25 factory of greenhouses.
That's like 50 football fields.
Yes, that is. That's huge.
It is, yeah.
Qatar plans to grow up to 70 percent
of its own produce by 2023.
Ready for market.
With hydroponic farming and other sustainable practices,
they're well on their way.
So your biggest challenge has been all the elements.
The sun, the earth, the water, the air, all of it.
So everything is actually against agriculture,
but today, once we provide the right environment to the plant,
then you can see that we can produce more.
Mmm.
Oh, wow.
It is really hard to believe I'm in a desert right now.
Our ancestors were able to cope and survive
and have a life in the desert.
We're trying to bring that modernizer in a sustainable way.
Kari: The futuristic skyline of Doha, Qatar,
was mostly built over the last couple of decades.
Building a state of the art skyscraper here
means contending with the brutal desert sun.
So, how can modern architecture and design
help provide relief from the heat?
This is Burj Doha.
Every detail of this 46 story office tower
was designed to help keep it cool year round.
The entrance sits below street level
and is surrounded by green walls,
which help cool the surrounding space.
I can feel that in my stomach. This goes fast.
While reflective glass and solar protection,
it's the aluminum shell that does the heavy lifting.
This side is the east side where the sun rises,
so the lattice work is really tight knit to shield you
from the heat and intensity.
But over here on the north side,
the latticework opens up where there's no direct sunlight
so it can let in all of the light.
This unique design is inspired by traditional
Arabic Mashrabiya.
Now, those are the ornately carved balconies
that you'll find all over the middle east and Asia.
The facade is both practical
and an expression of ancient Arabic design.
In the modern era.
The top two floors are going to be a luxury apartment.
Seriously, imagine living here, here, here.
Even if you live in the nicest place in Doha,
you still got to go outside some time.
30 minutes west of downtown Doha is education city,
a district comprising
five square miles of international universities
and schools for students of all ages.
It's also home to some of the most innovative
architecture in Qatar.
Oh, wow.
It is really hard to believe I'm in a desert right now.
[ Laughing ]
Oxygen park is one 150,000 square meters.
It's sort of a mixed use open park.
It was very well engineered to keep this area cooler,
as you can feel right now.
Local Sidra trees and drought tolerant grasses and plants
help cool the park.
To lower temperatures further,
architects took inspiration from the desert.
Usually when you're at the bottom of the sand dune,
it's cooler than being up top because of the wind.
Yes, I can feel the breeze coming through the tunnel.
It feels like it's whipping around.
That's sort of the design idea behind this phase.
Natural breezeways occur thanks to the covered walkways,
ventilation fans and several strategically placed tunnels.
The temperature just dropped. It's almost cold in here.
Yeah, I mean, it's a shaded area and it opens up to a waterfall.
That's the evaporative cooling from in the waterfall?
Yeah.
Evaporative cooling occurs when hot,
dry air passes over cold water.
The lower temperature water is absorbed
by the higher temperature air
making the surrounding area feel cooler.
Water features have been used as natural air conditioners
in desert climates for thousands of years.
Our ancestors were able to cope and survive
and have a life in the desert.
We're trying to bring that modernizer in a sustainable way.
The new desert design. The new desert design.
Exactly.
Oxygen park was created a few years ago
to provide an open space
for exercise, recreation and hanging out.
Seems like everywhere I go in the world,
there's one thing everyone has in common, which is pizza.
[ Laughter ]
Do you come here a lot?
- Yeah. - Spaces like this park
is kind of rare, but it's becoming more prevalent,
which I think is a good thing.
It's also kind of the way that this park is kind of set up
as well and how the builders use the weather to their strengths.
They don't use it and see it as a weakness.
People here often think they can only go out in the winter
and enjoy this weather and so on.
But oxygen park you can just enjoy all year long.
♪♪
The desert may be a place of extreme conditions
and limited resources, but the people of Qatar
have found a way to adapt and innovate,
all while honoring the cultural traditions
that have helped the. Survive for centuries,
Qatar is doing far more
than making this challenging environment inhabitable.
They're making the desert a place to thrive.