Desert forests and orchards

[Ricky B]

I would have to say that a forest in Libya is not the same as a forest in Brazil (if we had such a map). The northern part of the area had a relatively fair number of populated locations, where there was water and trees around the villages. Further south, and the map reflects this, there are many fewer of the "green" areas and it is easy enough to identify many of them as oases in reality. People lived here, and they weren't nomads wandering the desert with camels, although of course nomadic groups also existed.

Here is an example of one of the larger oasis to the south: http://www.avalanchepress.com/Young_Fascists.php. This discusses an oasis involved in the Alamein campaign, that had a vegetated area of 50 miles by 12 miles. So based on that, we don't have enough green.

And finally, the Sahara has been growing in size over the past few decades if not longer, and areas, maybe not in Libya, that used to have water are now dry. Just saying.

Rick