It was Naif Ahmed Alhanwsh’s childhood dream to become a veterinarian. But he never imagined he would play a pivotal role in safeguarding the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia’s biodiversity by breeding, rearing and releasing endangered native species.
“It is an indescribable feeling to release animals into their natural habitat. It is so beautiful,” says Alhanwsh, now veterinarian and director of the King Khalid Centre for Wildlife Research, located around 70 kilometres north of the capital, Riyadh.
Established on what was a royal farm in 1987, this centre is home to some of the most iconic wild animals in the Arabian Peninsula, including large hooved mammals like the oryx.
These creatures are part of an ambitious national plan to rewild Saudi Arabia and the surrounding region. The effort includes replanting native trees and restoring vegetation cover, along with a dramatic expansion of the country’s national park system.
The push is largely designed to prevent land degradation and creeping desertification in this country of 36 million people.
“We cannot have sustainable development without environmental protection and land is at the heart of environmental protection,” says Osama Ibrahim Faqeeha, Saudi Arabia’s Deputy Minister of Environment. “It is the backbone of terrestrial biodiversity, vegetation cover and much more.”
On 5 June, Saudi Arabia will host World Environment Day 2024, which will focus on land restoration, desertification and drought resilience. The deterioration of ecosystems worldwide affects 40 per cent of the global population, a number expected to rise in the coming years. The loss of once-productive lands is threatening food supplies, feeding climate change and driving a biodiversity crisis that is pushing 1 million species towards extinction, say experts.
“As humans, we need to radically rethink our relationship with nature and other species,” says Doreen Lynn-Robinson, Director of Biodiversity and Land at the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). “We must realize that having healthy ecosystems is vital for our survival, and that protecting all life on Earth, from the soil and seabed upwards, is the only viable future.”
Reviving landscapes – a process that includes everything from planting native vegetation to reflooding wetlands – can be an antidote to land degradation. It is especially important with climate change imperilling a growing number of ecosystems, Robinson says.
Countries have in recent years committed to restoring 1 billion hectares of degraded land and to meeting other targets to reverse dangerous nature loss. Much of that has been carried out under the banner of the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration.
Saudi Arabia is among the nations that have embraced restoration. The country’s animal rewilding work is happening alongside plans to restore 200 million hectares of degraded land at home and abroad.
Saudi Arabia is also working to fulfil nature protection goals outlined in its Vision 2030. The country has extended safeguards to more than 18 per cent of its land, up from 4 per cent. It has also increased the number of national parks to more than 400, from 19.
“Vision 2030 assigned high priority to environmental protection in general as the third pillar for sustainable development, along with economic growth and social wellbeing,” says Faqeeha.
Mohammed Qurban is the CEO of Saudi Arabia’s National Centre for Wildlife, which works alongside the National Centre for Vegetation Cover Development and Combating Desertification to restore flora and fauna on land and in the water.
“It is very important for us to take care of biodiversity, because it is very interlinked with human life,” Qurban says. Animal breeding and vaccination programmes are helping to return species to deserted areas, he adds, citing the success of rewilding the Arabian oryx. “When we released oryx in the north, an elder said that it was 100 years since they had been seen in the area,” he says. “Now we can see more than four generations in the north, so we are on a very good track for the oryx.”
Saudi Arabia hopes that its programmes to re-introduce animals into the wild lead to a comeback of other iconic species, such as the critically endangered Arabian leopard.
Rewilding predators also requires repopulating their prey, which includes a type of mountain goat called the Nubian ibex, another small-hoofed animal called the Arabian tahr, smaller mammals like rock hyraxes and hares, plus ground birds and insects.
Supporting all these species requires having vast areas of healthy land, fertile soils and vegetation.
In Saudi Arabia, development, overgrazing, rising temperatures and increasingly harsh climate-related shocks, such as sand and dust storms, have eroded the remaining green areas.
The loss of plant cover created a chain reaction, affecting animals across the country, said Qurban, who calls desertification the “number one issue” facing wildlife in Saudi Arabia.
Today though, wildlife experts are optimistic about the recovery of nature and the areas of once-empty land returning to life.
As director of the King Khalid Centre for Wildlife Research, Alhanwsh oversees the care of large-hooved animals, such as the Arabian oryx, the Nubian ibex and three antelope species. He says breeding programmes have been so successful that large numbers of animals are being resettled in their natural habitats.
That has buoyed other conservationists, like Qurban.
“I feel so happy and lighter to see all these animals in protected areas and moving in groups,” he says. “How beautiful and fantastic it is to see them jumping from one area to another.”
World Environment Day on 5 June is the biggest international day for the environment. Led by UNEP and held annually since 1973, the event has grown to be the largest global platform for environmental outreach, with millions of people from across the world engaging to protect the planet. This year, World Environment Day focuses on land restoration, desertification and drought resilience.
The UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration 2021–2030, led by the United Nations Environment Programme, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations and partners covers terrestrial as well as coastal and marine ecosystems. A global call to action, it will draw together political support, scientific research and financial muscle to massively scale up restoration.
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