2 million mangroves added to the carbon front line

Reversing the downward
desertification spiral

Saudi Arabia is an ancient land fringed by spectacular seas on its east and west. No rivers flow; rainfall is sporadic; and summer temperatures are high.

Despite the rarity of water, nature lives in this imposing but fragile environment where many native plants and animals are vulnerable to extinction. The Kingdom is home to native tree species found nowhere else on Earth.

Deforestation, an assault on nature, often exacerbates ecological scarcity and poverty. Saudi Arabia, aligned with its Saudi Vision 2030 transformational program, has activated multiple native tree-planting programs along its coastal plains, wide-open deserts, and mighty mountains.

Alongside 197 countries, Saudi Arabia signed a United Nations convention on combating desertification. Achieving neutrality in land degradation is an essential element toward reaching the “Sustainable Development Goals” adopted by all United Nations member states in 2015 to protect the planet and end poverty by 2030.

Mangroves are particularly suited to the Kingdom’s thirsty desert shorelines. Despite the Gulf waters having a higher salt content than most oceans and seas around the world, the plantings have a strong 90% survival rate, resiliently thriving in extreme variations of water temperatures and dissolved oxygen.

“Although Saudi Arabia has sporadic rainfall and sparse vegetation, it is surrounded by seas on both sides, making mangroves ideal as a species to increase natural forests in the Kingdom, because you don’t need to water them,” says Alharthi. “They live in conditions that no other tree can, connect the land and the sea, and are an important nature-based solution towards adapting to and mitigating climate change.”

Nature’s powerful ecological soldier

Mangroves forests are one of nature’s most powerful ecosystems, providing life-sustaining habitats for plants, birds, nursery areas for marine life, and supporting local communities relying on these productive ecosystems for their food security and well-being. The trees’ complex and deep descending root structures prevent shoreline erosion from waves and heavy storm surges, providing adaptation to climate change impacts.

When compared to other trees, mangroves have an extraordinary ability to remove CO₂ quickly from our planet’s atmosphere. Studies show mangroves sequester carbon many times faster, and for longer durations, than land-based forests.

Evaluated against most tropical land forests, mangroves store up to five times more carbon. Aramco estimates an Avicennia marina sequesters up to 1.5 metric tons of carbon over its average 60-year lifetime.

Aramco environmental consultant Ronald Loughland says increased development along the Kingdom’s eastern coastline resulted in 90% of mangroves being lost.  Areas where Aramco operates, however, contain most of the last existing healthy old growth mangrove forests in the Arabian Gulf.

“Regenerating the marvelous ability of mangrove forests restores biodiversity as well as economic and social benefits,” says Loughland. “Nature-based solutions reduce a footprint and sustain human life.”