Nature is full of mysteries. It can flood vast plains in a moment, and it can also bring rain that turns a grey desert green. Photos and videos of just such an unbelievable sight in Saudi Arabia recently went viral on social media, showing the hills and mountains of Makkah and Madinah turned green after weeks of continuous rain.

Plants have begun growing naturally in these areas, but the Saudi government had already set out to make the desert country green, launching several mega-projects. One of them is the Green Riyadh project.

According to the Saudi news outlet Arab News, the project was inaugurated towards the end of 2022. It was designed on global environmental standards with local conditions in mind, and will green more than 120 residential areas of the capital through tree planting.

Green Riyadh includes building parks in residential areas, planting trees along roads and footpaths, around mosques and schools and in parking lots, building large parks, and planting trees in valley areas.

The project plans to plant at least 7.5 million trees across Riyadh, raising green cover to 9.1 percent and green space per person from 1.7 square metres to 28 square metres.

The Saudi government will spend USD 11 billion on Green Riyadh over the next 10 years, creating 3,300 new parks and gardens. This is expected to help improve air quality and lower temperatures in the area.

The biggest greening project in Saudi Arabia, however, is the Saudi Green Initiative (SGI), which plans to plant 10 billion trees across the country.

Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman launched it in 2021. Since then more than 18 million trees have been planted across Saudi Arabia under the project, 13 million of them in mangrove areas, and 60,000 hectares of forest have been restored in one year.

Under the SGI plan, at least 650 million trees will be planted in Saudi Arabia by 2030 and at least 8 million hectares of forest restored. This is expected to cut carbon emissions by 200 million tonnes a year.

Source: Jagonews24. First published in Bengali on The Agro News.