My father often tells me stories about spending the 2 month long summer vacations, in his ancestral village. Very hot summer days. Most of the time there will be no electricity & mind you no air-conditioning as well. He used to spend time in agriculture farm lands with shades of trees & water from canal. He does not remember of sweating, no discomfort at all. In fact they used to eat a lot, play a lot & sleep a lot. All in the blissful lap of Mother Nature. I think those were the golden days of his life. The people of village used to follow traditional methods of eco-conservation. Organic Farming, Using shades of Trees, shrubs at the farm borders to check soil erosion, Crop rotation to ensure fertility, Enough grass at the river banks so that floods does not sweep the fertile land along and so on so forth.

This is the power of traditional knowledge that eco-conservation was at its best 5 decades ago. Since then it just deteriorates faster every day.

UAE is a big consumer of natural resources & responsible of contributing to global warming. In this regard, they have always tried to use traditional knowledge in order to ensure Environmental Conservation.

Neem Tree [Azadirachta indica]

One of such example is extensive plantation of Neem Trees in the UAE.

The neem tree is valued for its many medicinal uses in the subcontinent, but some in the UAE - ranging from horticulturalists to the Abu Dhabi Urban Planning Council (UPC) - are saying it and similarly drought-tolerant species are equally valuable here by demonstrating that the much-prized verdant foliage is not dependent on irrigation.

The neem tree is described in the manual as an "excellent urban tree for streets, public plazas and parks. Very successful in Al Ain". The Indian banyan tree is also recommended as a "good street and park tree providing dense shade in a climate where shade is critical".

As part of its greener environment initiative, Dubai Investment Park plantation includes Delonix Regia, Conocarpus, Azadirachta Indica and Neem trees, as also Bougainvillea, Clerodendron & Vitex shrubs, which will absorb hundreds of tonnes of carbon dioxide from atmosphere annually.

To create those in the UAE requires extensive irrigation using a combination of desalinated water and, more recently, treated wastewater, completely at odds with the country's sustainability goals and recent warnings of future water shortages. And the UPC recognises this in new planting rules issued last year by the organisation for all of Abu Dhabi's future public areas, lawns are out of fashion and drought-tolerant species are in.

But while the UPC was preparing its rule book, the plants at Jebel Ali were showing the way.

On a baking hot, mid-May morning when just standing still is enough to leave you bathed in sweat, it's hard to believe anything could survive in this environment without help. The ubiquitous black irrigation piping around the villas shows gardens here used to rely on water just like similar complexes all across the Emirates. There you will find neem trees standing tall & green & without regular supply of water.

Many of them feature in the UPC's rule book, the Abu Dhabi Public Realm Design Manual, which requires that at least 80 per cent of the landscaping in public areas consist of locally occurring, drought-tolerant plant species.

Ghaf Tree

For the greenery and green belt, it?s absolutely Ghaf tree. Actually Sheikh Zayed started it many years ago in order to protect the first road they were building because they had a huge problem of sand moving with the wind and covering the roads.

"So it was decided to plant Ghaf trees everywhere along the road because they have incredible property whereby the roots work as sand stabiliser. They actually grab the sand and make it not move,? Abella said. Ghaf trees come on their own and survive on their own without any help as the root goes down up to 50 metres.?

The biggest cluster of the Ghaf tree is located in Sharjah Wildlife Centre, housing thousands of UAE national trees. There a number of these trees along the Dubai-Al Ain Road.

Ahmad Abdul Karim, Director, Public Parks and Horticulture Department, Dubai Municipality, has said in an interview with Emirates 24l7 that there is a very strict policy in place and those found cutting a Ghaf plant or a tree will be fined Dh500 to Dh1,000. But if a tree is totally damaged, the person could face a fine of up to Dh50,000.

Bay way of promoting such vegetation UAE is ensuring Environmental Conservation through Traditional knowledge.

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Inputs From:

The National, Gulf News, Emirates 24/7