There is an old Bedouin saying that three things make the desert habitable: The Bedouin, the camel and the date palm. According to a Bedouin creation story, when god created humankind from clay, two lumps slipped from his hands. From them came the date palm and the camel.
The story places the camel alongside human life and the vegetation that sustains it - not as an outsider to the desert, but as one of the beings through which the desert becomes inhabitable. It is precisely this ability to live where other livestock struggle that could make the camel relevant in an increasingly hotter world.
For centuries, the camel has been associated with an environment many people imagine as hostile to life: the desert.