RIYADH: Mohammed Qurban, the CEO of the National Center for Wildlife, has said that Saudi Arabia has designated 18.10 percent of its land and 6.48 percent of its marine habitats as protected areas.
He made the comments at the first Hima protected areas forum in Riyadh on Sunday, where experts had gathered to discuss Saudi Arabia’s environmental progress during a panel called “Achieving the 30 percent by 2030 Target for Terrestrial and Marine Protected Areas: Aligning International and National Efforts.”
Saudi Arabia is advancing its conservation initiatives and through the Saudi Green Initiative, which was launched in 2021, the country aims to protect 30 percent of its terrestrial and marine areas, through protected areas, by 2030, with the help of the National Center for Wildlife.
Osama Faqeeha, deputy minister for environment at the Ministry of Environment, Water and Agriculture, said that effective conservation required collaboration between the private and public sectors.
He said: “The National Environment Strategy outlines the necessary initiatives and resources to meet national environmental protection and development goals. It aims to engage all stakeholders to balance economic growth with environmental sustainability, ensuring a thriving natural environment for future generations.”
John Grainger, consultant at International Conservation Services, described Saudi Arabia as a “can-do society,” especially when it comes to tackling environmental conservation challenges.
He said: “Establishing protected areas is not about managing nature, it’s about managing people, and for that you will need a cadre of committed conservationists or those empowered to carry out the Kingdom’s conservation agenda.”
Grainger added that building connections between local communities and institutional capacity was important for achieving specific conservation goals and development objectives.
Neville Ash, the director of the UN Environment World Conservation Monitoring Centre, said that the Kingdom’s progress in conservation aligned with the global understanding of sustainability.
He said: “The progress being made at the national level in Saudi Arabia is reflected in the global understanding of progress, both to showcase and champion the work that’s done in the Kingdom and because of that huge contribution to global progress that has been made.”
Ash pointed out the effective use of reporting mechanisms for tracking conservation progress through the platform Protected Planet.
He said: “This year we are producing the next version of the 2024 Protected Planet Report, which will be the first assessment of progress to target three of the global biodiversity framework.”
He emphasized the importance of collaboration between the UN Environment Programme, the WCMC, and the National Center for Wildlife to keep conservation data updated to ensure it was reflected in the reports.
Protected Planet is a resource for business, conservation, and aid investment planning, serving as a foundation for tracking and reporting on progress toward global environmental goals such as target three of the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals.
