Desertification is impacting drylands all over the world. Culminating in land degradation, it’s caused by a combination of things, including climate variation and human activities. The intensity and range of desertification has increased significantly in some dryland areas in recent decades. Drylands currently cover 46 percent of the planet’s surface and are home to more than 3 billion people. This means that desertification is a serious problem globally, although it predominantly affects communities in the Middle East, North Africa and South and East Asia.
Saudi Arabia has invested a huge amount into sustainable development. Examples include its Green Mosques Project, which was created with the mission of planting 30,000 trees at 100 mosques across the Kingdom. Plants will be irrigated with water recycled from ablution. Meanwhile, with a projected completion date of 2025, the Enhance Saudi Arabia’s Energy Efficiency Program aims to establish new energy efficiency standards for water desalination, electricity transmission and distribution, and power generation. Here are some more projects:
Integrated Management and Sustainable Development of Pastures Project
In October 2022, the Saudi National Center for Vegetational Development and Combating Desertification announced that it had planted over 12 million wild trees and shrubs. The Center planted the trees as part of its Integrated Management and Sustainable Development of Pastures Project, an initiative supporting Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030. The project aims to develop gardens and floodplains as part of a wider goal of rehabilitating more than 550,000 acres of pastureland in several places in the Kingdom by 2030.
In 2021, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman unveiled plans to plant 450 million trees by 2030. The Kingdom hopes these efforts will help halt desertification and preserve biodiversity and limited water resources throughout the region. Using the Saudi Green Initiative, the Saudi government aims to preserve and increase the amount of vegetation found across the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
In 2021, impressive progress was made towards these goals: 60,000 trees were planted in the Saudi capital Riyadh alone. An additional 8.4 million trees were planted across the country in total that same year. In nurseries around AlUla, a World Heritage Site, a quarter of a million saplings were grown from cuttings or seeds. This is only the beginning of a far-reaching national effort to reduce sandstorms, improve air quality, and restore vital ecological functions, thereby protecting the future of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
Saudi Green Initiative
Even though much of the country is covered by the desert, Saudi Arabia is home to a surprisingly large number of plant species, its indigenous species capable of withstanding the harsh conditions found across the country. The Kingdom has more than 2,000 catalogued wild plant species. Unfortunately, data from the Saudi National Center for Wildlife suggest that about 600 of these species are endangered, and 21 are already believed to be extinct.
With a target of planting 450 million shrubs and trees across the country by 2030, the Saudi Green Initiative is the largest afforestation project Saudi Arabia has ever seen. Part of the Saudi Vision 2030, the Saudi Green Initiative is a long-term sustainable action plan. It’s designed to address climate change, reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and increase production and adoption of clean energy across the Kingdom. To this end, more than 77 different initiatives have been launched by the Saudi government to achieve the overriding objective of delivering a greener future for all.
The Saudi Green Initiative gathers data and compiles field studies on behalf of the National Pasture Strategy Initiative, mapping plans for planting indigenous shrubs and trees across Saudi Arabia. The Saudi Green Initiative has tackled a variety of aspects of afforestation, from irrigation to seed dispersal. Saudi Arabia’s National Center for Vegetation Development and Combating Desertification has worked closely with private sector companies, environmental groups, and the Beekeepers Association, targeting several floodplains as part of its plans to create new breeding grounds for bees.
Middle East Green Initiative
The United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification welcomed Saudi Arabia’s pledge of more than $2.5 billion in investment to support the Middle East Green Initiative to restore land, which was announced at the COP27 Climate Change Conference in November 2022. Ibrahim Thiaw of the United Nations explained that, with political will, this generation still has the means to slow and change course from a catastrophic future. To date, the international community had committed to restoring 2.4 billion acres of land in the race to ward off the worst impacts of climate change.