Middle East

 
In 2002 and 2003, Lee Harding led a team of environmental scientists to quantify the damage to wildlife and their habitats caused by overgrazing on the Jordanian desert.  The overgrazing was the result of Iraq's invasion of Kuwait, causing approximately 6,000 Bedouin families to flee to Jordan with their livestock, and journey of about 1,000 km on foot. Hannah Diamond participated in the interviews with Bedouin tribal leaders and edited the reports. The team included an ornithologist, a plant ecologist,  wetlands ecologist, and a GIS specialist (all from Jordan), with  Harding contributing the mammal and range ecology expertise.  They documented, from published records, interviews with Bedouins and on-site surveys, the trends in numbers of sheep, goats and camels throughout the Jordanian desert from the 1970s to 2002, and the changes during that time in forage production, range condition, wildlife habitat quality and wildlife populations. With these metrics, a British environmental economics team put a dollar value on the environmental damage using the Habitat Equivalency Analysis method. They also developed proposals for rehabilitation of desert upland and wetland habitats for restoration of rare wildlife species such as Arabian oryx and Nubian ibex.

In 2004, Dr. Harding was a member of the Jordanian delegation to the United Nations Compensation Commission (UNCC) to argue its case against Iraq for environmental compensation. In 2005, the UNCC awarded Jordan $161 million USD for these damages.

In 2006, Dr. Harding and Ms. Diamond assisted the Jordan Badia Research and Development Centre to prepare proposals for implementation of the award. This require consultations with Bedouin tribal shaykhs, community groups, and government agencies.

A paper on the Arabian oryx reintroduction programme has been published by the journal, Oryx:

Lee E. Harding, Omar F. Abu-Eid, Nashat Hamidan and Ahmad al Sha'lan 2007. Reintroduction of the Arabian oryx Oryx leucoryx in Jordan: war and redemption. Oryx 41(3): 478-487.

Please click here for more information on Arabian oryx and other components of Jordan's wildlife captive breeding and reintroduction program.

Below: Desert oases and existing and potential nature reserves, as well as the Gulf of Aqaba's world-famous coral reefs, were part of the study.

Ma'an oasis
Awassi sheep
Arabian oryx
Nubian ibex

 

Rum Protected Area
Shaumari Nature Reserve
Ain Qatar, a spring deep in Wadi Rum; note mosquito fern growing on roof of cave
Syrian border, a demilitarized zone where the country's last goitered gazelles live
Azraq Nature Reserve, a Ramsar site
Hazim  Oasis near the Saudi Arabia border, currently unprotected
Badia Research and Development Centre research station
A revegetation experiment at Murajib near the Syrian border
Zarqa River
Burq'u Oasis, a proposed Nature Reserve (from top of Burq'u Castle)
Aqaba's world-famous coral  reefs
Nubian ibex at Mujib Nature Reserve
Dana Nature Reserve

Arabian oryx (Oryx leucoryx) and sand gazelle (Gazella subguttarosa)