Qatar to Green the Desert, Opening Agriculture and Pastoral Lands

Qatar’s Ministry of the Environment is working with Damascus-based Arab Center for the Studies of Arid Zones and Dry Lands (ACSAD) to convert Qatar’s desert regions into pastoral and agricultural lands. Greening the Qatari desert is a priority for the government, attempting to undo the effects of modern rangeland management techniques.

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While traditional rangeland management allowed human pastoralists to work within the fragile desert ecosystem, modern short-term rangeland management techniques have resulted in a decrease in vegetation density across Qatar from 10% of land cover to 1%.

ACSAD is an Arab organization working within the framework of the League of Arab States to unify Arab efforts to develop scientific agricultural research in arid and semi-arid areas, aid in information exchange and promote modern agricultural techniques in order to increase the agricultural production.

ACSAD’s help will also include working on livestock production, setting up Qatar-specific gene banks, developing drought-resistant agricultural strains, and aiding in the recharging of groundwater sources.

This work helps implement the Supreme Qatar Desert Development Council’s plan for the development of the desert, which calls for the greening of the Qatari desert.

What goes unsaid in the march towards a “green desert”: as the desert is converted into economically and socially viable lands, the pre-existing fragile desert ecosystems are degraded if not destroyed completely.

Image: by Jeppestown on Flickr under a Creative Commons license.

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