Jordan marks Arbour Day

AMMAN — Deputising for His Majesty King Abdullah, HRH Princess Rahma on Sunday attended the Agriculture Ministry’s celebration of Arbour Day, held near Sharhabil Dam in Irbid’s Northern Jordan Valley District. 

The celebration included planting perennial trees, as part of the forestation project in the area, which is implemented under Royal directives, the Jordan News Agency, Petra, reported. 

Princess Rahma — along with employees from the ministry and the Forestry Department, local community members and volunteers — took part in planting the trees.

The princess listened to a briefing by Agriculture Minister Khaled Hneifat on the ministry’s forestation plans that focus on sustainability.

The minister said the project aims at increasing the Kingdom’s green cover and preserving perennial forests, noting that this project comes after concluding the Juthor scheme.

The King Abdullah II Fund for Development implemented the Juthor scheme, which was financed by the Royal Court and included planting 250,000 trees over a 12,000-dunum plot of land in Karak’s Sneiniya area.

The director of the Forestry Department, Raed Adwan, said the new project includes planting the sides of Sharhabil Dam with 20,000 trees over a 1,000-dunum area, noting that the Royal Court funded the project.

The project will be implemented in two stages to cover large areas of forest land, and will be equipped with the infrastructure necessary for its sustainability, such as water reservoirs, drip irrigation networks and fences. 

The total area of the forest land in the Kingdom stands at 1.4 million dunums, 900,000 dunums of which are nature forests of oak, pine and cupressus trees, in addition to 2,200 dunums of roadsides that are planted with perennial trees, Adwan highlighted.

Celebrating the occasion, the Agriculture Ministry distributed 2 million forest tree saplings to farmers, public agencies and NGOs, to encourage citizens to increase the green area of the country, he added.