Rewilding the Desert Kingdom
Saudi Arabia has embarked on an epic and ambitious journey to bring back wildlife such as Arabian oryx, Nubian ibex and Arabian leopards to its landscapes and restore ecosystems to their full functionality. Photographer David Chancellor has a ringside seat as life returns to the desert.
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In total, 20 Arabian oryx, 50 sand gazelles and 10 Nubian ibex were released into Sharaan, a key step on the long road to rewilding the reserve. And this is just one small piece in the jigsaw of the overall vision of the leadership, set out in the Saudi Green Initiative, which has targeted reducing carbon emissions to net zero by 2060 and increasing the area of land given formal protection to 20 per cent by the end of the decade and ultimately 30 per cent in total.
AlGhrameel Reserve
محمية الغراميل
Sharaan Nature Reserve
محمية شرعان الطبيعية
Medina
مَدِيْنَة
Wādī Nakhlah
وَادِي نَخْلَة
I was initially reluctant to cover this story, mindful that whatever Saudi Arabia was promising to do, it was still one of the world’s largest oil producers. However, I have since come to appreciate that it has embarked on one of the most ambitious and far-reaching nature conservation programmes in the world.
Witnessing the releases at Sharaan, and further ones at the unfenced reserves of Wadi Nakhlah and Al Gharameel, made me feel vindicated in my decision to document this genuinely green revolution. It’s not just significant in itself, but I believe offers lessons for other countries wanting to follow suit.
And in contrast with conservation programmes in many parts of Africa, there’s no need to go cap-in-hand to the EU or another funding body for the resources to realise this goal – vast sums are available to fund this grand plan from the Saudi government itself.
Such rewilding cannot be carried out simply by letting a few large, charismatic herbivores back into reserves. The overall goal is to restore the delicate balance of the ecosystems so that as little human intervention as possible is required. In Sharaan – 1,500 sq km of red-rock canyons, sprawling desert and valleys carpeted with wildflowers – it was first necessary to fence the entire reserve in order to keep domestic sheep, goats and camels out and allow the vegetation to recover.
In general, Saudi Arabia is aiming not to fence its reserves, but to achieve quick results in very degraded landscapes, and to demonstrate what can be achieved, it was decided that this was the best way forward here.
One of my main goals as I travelled around Saudi Arabia was to witness and photograph the process of reintroducing wildlife into the reserves, and this began at the National Centre for Wildlife (NCW)’s breeding facility in Riyadh. In the days before the animals were due to be released, they had to be caught and fitted with GPS collars that will allow their movements to be tracked and then wrestled into crates for transport across the desert.
This was dramatic, exciting but dangerous work. Nubian ibex are large and aggressive animals, though oryx are larger and have those dramatically long horns that can cause severe or even fatal injuries. A vet I was working with was limping quite badly after being hit by an ibex a few days earlier.
Thankfully, the men who work at these centres are highly experienced and have what needs to be done down to a fine art. Once in a pen, they use either fabric blinds (or wooden boards in the case of the oryx) and gradually squeeze the oryx or ibex into a smaller and smaller corner.
At this point, as I saw for myself, the creature is usually thrashing around wildly, an intimidating situation for anyone within range of a flailing hoof or thrusting horn. One of the catchers has to rugby tackle it to the floor and then they must all work together to pin it to the ground.
The culmination of the rewilding programme will be the long-awaited reintroduction of Arabian leopards, the return of the Saudi peninsula’s top predator. Like their better-known African cousins, these leopards are elusive and rarely seen, but they differ in being considerably smaller and having tan brown, rather than golden yellow, coats.
My time in Saudi Arabia over recent months has been fascinating, eye-opening and inspiring. I’ve witnessed first hand how the Saudi Green Initiative is creating a giant rewilding pilot programme that may, in time, come to be a beacon for other countries to follow.
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Copyright © 2000 - 2021
Saudi Green Initiative
Wādī Nakhlah
Sharaan Nature Reserve
Al Gharameel
Click on the map to discover more about the wildlife releases
Engagement with local communities was also vital if it were to succeed. In countries like Kenya, I’ve seen how the failure to bring people onside with nature-based initiatives, or asking them to live with wildlife that may impact their livelihoods without offering adequate or speedy recompense for livestock lost to predation can be detrimental to conservation goals.
To avoid this, Saudi conservationists have made huge efforts to talk to the people living around areas where wildlife is being reintroduced so that many years of hard work and captive-breeding efforts are not put into jeopardy by human-wildlife conflict. Much of the wildlife that once lived in its wildernesses was previously hunted to virtual extinction, it would be tragic for that to happen again.
That is why it was important for the local village elders to release the wildlife at Sharaan. More than just a good photo opportunity, it played an important role in ensuring the community feels part of the conservation project. The wildlife releases also offer the perfect opportunity for the rangers to drink tea with the local village elders and explain the importance of protecting the natural environment and the released animals.
An Arabian oryx is 'soft released' into a fenced area. After a period of adjustment the animal will be released into the reserve. (David Chancellor)
Catch and release
But, despite the risks to both us and the wildlife, all the animals were caught without incident. Before transferring the animals to the transportation container, they put a GPS collar around them, to enable newly trained wildlife rangers to monitor the animals’ progress once they had been released into Sharaan and the other reserves. This is particularly important in the case of unfenced areas because the animals can wander where they like, increasing the potential for conflict with domestic livestock and therefore people.
Once at Sharaan, Wadi Nakhlah or Al Gharameel, the wildlife then undergoes what’s called a "soft release". Rather than just being freed and being left to fend for themselves, animals are let out into a large enclosure for two or three weeks and given food and water during this time. This allows them to get accustomed to their new environment without the added burden of having to find food to survive.
Great green plans
Bringing back the leopard
Beacon of hope
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A dust storm envelopes the Sharaan Nature Reserve in Saudi Arabia (David Chancellor)
There’s been a real revival within the Kingdom of appreciation for the nation’s cultural and natural heritage. NEOM is really at the leading edge of capturing and manifesting that aspiration.
Conservationists were embedded in the design process of NEOM. This enabled us to plan a city with just just five percent of the 26,500 square kilometre landscape, protecting 95 percent for restoration.
14 Arabian oryx released.
AlGhrameel Reserve
20 Arabian
oryx released
Sharaan Nature Reserve
14 Nubian ibex released
14 Arabian gazelles released
Wādī Nakhlah
Hail
حائل
Uglat Asugour
عقلة الصقور
Afif
عفيف
No other natural park in the world has such an expanse of geographies, from snow-capped mountains, deserts and wadis,
to crystal clear reefs and a deep ocean abyss.
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In the vast emptiness of the Arabian desert, I witnessed a seismic shift taking place. A group of local village elders and landowners, dressed in their traditional robes, gathered by a long line of large wooden crates with a growing sense of expectation. A dust storm whipped up the sand into the cool, morning air, and caught the robes of the waiting party. The billowing robes reminded me of the sails of ships at the start of a race, straining in the wind, ready and eager to set forth.
David Chancellor
Photographer
The local village elders lifted the doors and magnificent Arabian oryx – large, milky-white antelopes with long, scimitar-shaped horns – emerged.
I had returned to Sharaan Nature Reserve, in the region of AlUla in north-west Saudi Arabia, to continue my journey of discovery through the country. I was investigating and documenting the burgeoning conservation and rewilding efforts throughout the kingdom.
I first visited Saudi Arabia in October 2021 and was surprised by the scale of ambition to protect and rewild the kingdom's landscapes. The bold vision of its leaders to diversify and green its economy and bring about large-scale ecological restoration has started a conservation movement and attracted some of the best and brightest conservation experts from around the world. Their challenge is to establish and manage the kingdom’s nature reserves. I was intrigued to see what progress had been made in the months since my last visit.
Rangers and local village elders release animals into the Sharaan nature reserve, in northwest Saudi Arabia (David Chancellor)
What I was about to witness was real evidence of genuine progress. The local village elders lifted the doors and magnificent Arabian oryx – large, milky-white antelopes with long, scimitar-shaped horns – emerged, along with stocky Nubian ibex, with their absurdly and extravagantly curved horns, and comparatively slight and diminutive Arabian sand gazelles. The liberated animals, which had been transported overnight from the captive-breeding center in Riyadh, savoured their new-found freedom as I savoured this moment in time and history.
Years of overgrazing by domestic livestock and overhunting of its native antelopes and other species for their meat and horns, however, have reduced much of the country to sterile, empty spaces, devoid of both fauna and flora. As a result, its predators have also largely disappeared. But the return of vegetation and grazing mammals will, it’s hoped, culminate in the reintroduction of the critically endangered Arabian leopard, once the top predator in this vast and mysterious land.
Overall, the aim is to rehabilitate 400,000 sq km of land – an area nearly double that of England and Scotland combined – by planting 10 billion trees and other vegetation and to restore Saudi’s landscapes to their natural state before centuries of overgrazing by domestic livestock took their toll.
Arabian gazelle being fitted with GPS tracker. (David Chancellor)
David Chancellor
Photographer
Rather than just being freed and being left to fend for themselves, animals are let out into a large enclosure for two or three weeks and given food and water during this time.
In one reserve I visited, all rangers are drawn from the local community, and there’s a lot of competition for the jobs. I sat in on some interviews where some 2,300 people had applied for 34 places, a remarkable statistic suggesting that local communities have not only accepted the idea of bringing wildlife back to their areas, but are fully committed to helping make it a success.
As well as keeping track of the wildlife, the rangers will have to deal with potential conflict situations when animals come close to communities. This will become even more important in the future when leopards are reintroduced, but with the highly sophisticated GPS monitoring, they will be able to inform local people when leopards are approaching their village and that they should put their livestock in a protective boma.
They are also, sadly, incredibly rare, classified as critically endangered by the world’s wildlife authority the IUCN, with an unknown number of cats found in mainly southwestern Oman and probably some parts of Saudi Arabia, with Hijaz and the Sarawat Mountains, close to the border with Yemen, likely to have the best populations.
Consequently, Saudi has a captive-breeding programme for the leopards, with 16 individuals held at a centre in Taif, not far from the world-famous and holy city of Mecca. Scientists working there hope to increase numbers substantially over the next few years with the aim of having enough individuals that some offspring can be released into the wild.
As the Saudi peninsula’s apex predator, leopards are vital to complete the rewilding process. You don’t have a fully balanced ecosystem without them. They regulate herbivore numbers by predating on them, but as has been shown in other parts of the world, large carnivores also change prey behaviour and subtly improve and modify landscapes as a result. It’s not clear exactly when reserves will be ready for leopards, with much depending on how well the orxy, ibex and gazelles fare, though it’s probable that Sharaan – because it is fenced – will be the first to receive reintroduced animals.
Veterinarians and their assistants capture animals at National Center for Wildlife (NCW)’s breeding facility in Riyadh. The animals are then fitted with GPS trackers so rangers can track them after their release into nature reserves. (David Chancellor)
Leopard at the Taif breeding programme in southern Saudi Arabia (David Chancellor)
Today, if you sit on a rock in the desert and look around at the rugged crags, the clefted canyons and flat, level sands, you will not see any wildlife, but you can easily imagine what was been there in years gone by and the potential for what could be there once again in the future.
What SGI and the kingdom’s political leadership are trying to achieve is monumental, and success – for me – will be measured by when in five, ten of fifteen years time, you sit on that same rock, and instead of observing an empty landscape, you hear the roar of an Arabian leopard or watch as a herd of ghostly oryx moves silently past. When that happens, then you can say that Saudi Arabia has been rewilded.
Rangers and local village elders release animals into the Sharaan nature reserve, in northwest Saudi Arabia (David Chancellor)
40 sand gazelles released.
50 sand gazelles released
10 Nubian ibex released
Crates containing Nubian ibex and Arabian gazelles set for ‘soft release’ into a fenced area at Wadi Nakhlah, Saudi Arabia (David Chancellor)
Crates containing Arabia oryx and Arabian gazelles set for a ‘soft release’ into a fenced area at Wadi Nakhlah, Saudi Arabia. After a period of adjustment the animals will be released into the unfenced reserve (David Chancellor)
A Sharaan ranger pouring tea for the local village elders prior to the release of the wildlife at Al Gharameel, Saudi Arabia (David Chancellor)
Local village elders and landowners discuss conservation prior to the release of the wildlife at Al Gharameel, Saudi Arabia (David Chancellor)
Local village elders release Arabian gazelles at Wadi Nakhlah, Saudi Arabia (David Chancellor)
Incididunt id adipisicing elit et occaecat occaecat magna eu ad.
Incididunt id adipisicing elit et occaecat occaecat magna eu ad cupidatat et occaecat.
Incididunt id adipisicing elit et occaecat occaecat magna eu ad.
Copyright © 2000 - 2021
Saudi Green Initiative
Visit saudigreeninitiative.org to find out how the Kingdom is championing climate action at home and abroad and more about its goal to achieve net zero emissions by 2060.
Find out more about the world of @chancellordavid at davidchancellor.com
Join the journey
Visit saudigreeninitiative.org to find out how the Kingdom is championing climate action at home and abroad and more about its goal to achieve net zero emissions by 2060.
Leopard at the Taif breeding programme in southern Saudi Arabia (David Chancellor)
Al Gharameel
صخور الغراميل
Medina
مَدِيْنَة
Wādī Nakhlah
وَادِي نَخْلَة
Sharaan Nature Reserve
محمية شرعان الطبيعية
Hail
حائل
Mahd adh Dhahab
محافظة مهد الذهب
Ranyah
رنية
Uglat Asugour
عقلة الصقور
Wadi ad-Dawasir
وادي الدواسر
Wādī Nakhlah
Sharaan Nature Reserve
Al Gharameel
Makkah
مكة المكرمة
Tayma
تيماء
Harrat Uwayrid Reserve
محمية حرة عويرض
Riyadh
الرياض
Harrat AlZabin Reserve
محمية وادي الزبن