Vegetation coverage in dry and arid areas faces many environmental challenges, such as low rainfall and high temperatures, in addition to random human practices and excessive exploitation of natural resources, including excessive logging.
The decline in environmental awareness and the search for material gains have contributed to the expansion of logging operations, which has led to the deterioration of vegetation coverage in many countries of the world.
The rate of firewood cutting has increased globally due to the use of firewood and charcoal for heating and home cooking, the use of modern technologies in cutting trees, such as mechanical saws, and the search for economic returns from marketing and selling firewood, in addition to weak oversight and the absence of strict laws.
الاحتطاب
Risks of logging
Cutting down trees or logging causes many environmental and climatic risks, including the disappearance of vegetation coverage, erosion of topical soil and loss of its fertility, increased desertification and sand encroachment, and consequently increased sand and dust storms. As a result of soil erosion, the risk of floods and torrents increases.
Logging leads to a decrease in land productivity, affects the ecosystems associated with trees, and the loss of living organisms living in their natural environment amidst the scorching sun, which threatens biodiversity. In addition, the deterioration of the vegetation cover exacerbates climate change as a result of the increased release of carbon dioxide and air pollutants into the atmosphere, and the reduction of oxygen production.
The impact of logging extends to the shallow groundwater reserve, which is formed by the infiltration of rain into the depths of the soil. However, as a result of the lack of vegetation that allows water to infiltrate, the surface groundwater reserve decreases, and of course all of this leads to economic, developmental, social and health impacts.
Combating logging in the Saudi Kingdom
The natural vegetation found within the natural environments of Saudi Arabia, such as mountains, deserts, coasts and valleys, is divided into two sections: Pastures and their area are equivalent to about 73% of the country's area, while forests represent 1.35%.
For years, Saudi Arabia has been working to eliminate illegal logging and increase the percentage of vegetation coverage. The Kingdom’s efforts to confront this harmful practice have varied between enacting new laws, increasing violations and fines to preserve vegetation cover, expanding the planting of new trees by adopting initiatives and strategies to reduce logging and regulate grazing, and finding effective solutions to confront environmental challenges and reduce
carbon emissions.
National Center for Vegetation Cover Development and Combating
Desertification
The Kingdom established the National Center for Vegetation Cover Development and Combating Desertification, with the aim of supervising the management of pasture lands, forests and national parks, developing, protecting and monitoring vegetation sites, detecting any encroachments on them, and combating logging and desertification. The center's main tasks and responsibilities are to protect, develop and sustain forests, pastures and national parks, and to rehabilitate vegetation and afforestation.
The center manages several initiatives to reforest sites that have been severely deforested, including the Sustainable Forest Management and Development Initiative by 2030, through planting 60 million local trees and rehabilitating 348,000 hectares of forest areas and valleys, in addition to initiatives to involve the public and private sectors in developing vegetation cover and combating desertification, with the aim of cooperating with public and private sector entities, by launching programs to plant and protect 58 million local trees in areas subject to these sectors.
Logging penalties
Cutting trees, whether for sale or use, is considered a violation of the environmental law and the firewood regulations, and requires the imposition of fines. The penalty may be doubled if the violation is repeated, and the violator is obligated to repair the damage.
The National Center for Vegetation Cover Development and Combating Desertification plays an important role in combating and eliminating the phenomenon of firewood, in addition to drying up local firewood markets, through inspection tours carried out by the Center’s monitoring teams in forests, pastures and national parks, with the aim of confronting harmful behaviors that lead to the deterioration of the ecosystem and the increase in the area of desertification.
The initiative of Green Saudi Arabia
To cover losses from logging and desertification, Saudi Vision 2030 seeks to increase green spaces and plant endangered shrubs and trees that have been exposed to logging, overgrazing and removal, to achieve a more sustainable future.
As part of a comprehensive action plan to ensure the achievement of the initiative’s goal, which includes planting 10 billion trees sustainably across the Kingdom, a number of afforestation initiatives will be implemented, with an emphasis on developing community awareness about trees and achieving social participation in planting vegetation.
The Saudi Green Initiative adopts a strategy to restore green natural spaces, combat desertification, and eliminate logging, through several initiatives including the initiative to preserve and rehabilitate vegetation coverage in pastures in order to preserve 8 million hectares of pastures across 26 sites, contributing to the “Let’s Make It Green” campaign by planting 6 million trees and irrigating these green spaces using treated gray water, and the initiative to plant mangrove trees to maintain the stability of marine ecosystems and prevent soil erosion.
Since 2021, the Saudi Green Initiative has begun to bear fruit, and has so far succeeded in planting 50 million trees and reclaiming 94,000 hectares, in addition to 250,000 seedlings produced in Al-Ula nurseries. All these positive results help to eliminate logging, land degradation and desertification.
