JEDDAH: The Saudi Wildlife Authority (SWA) has offered visitors to the 12th Souq Okaz festival the opportunity to be introduced to the Kingdom’s diverse wildlife and the resettlement of endangered species in reserves.
SWA has turned an area of the festival’s grounds into a mini-reserve for the Arabian oryx, which can survive the driest climates and most arid regions in the Arabian peninsula, explaining how it can be saved from extinction using the captive-reproduction method before resettling the species in its natural habitat.
The Arabian oryx featured at Souq Okaz can adapt well to hot climates found in deserts, semi-deserts, dry-grass plains and meadows, and areas of rocky slopes.
The white, wide-eyed animal is considered a bovid and a desert antelope.
In the mini-reserve, there is also an ostrich. The number of ostriches has grown inside reserves, owing to the improved environmental and climatic conditions as well as the management of wild ostrich groups.
Through photos and documentary films, SWA has also introduced the festival’s visitors to other animal species it seeks to save, including the houbara bustard, which lives in open arid areas. Overhunting causes the species’ declining number and the worsening of its natural habitat is due to overgrazing and agricultural development.
The Arabian leopard, the most common wildcat species still spread in mountainous areas, was also featured alongside several endangered Accipitriformes.
SWA has provided its corner’s visitors with information on the first studies conducted in several reserves through monitoring vegetation, which has grown steadily, encouraging SWA to move forward with its resettlement program, in addition to providing information on protecting animals inside reserves by surrounding them with fences to monitor their adaptation before releasing them into the wild.
SWA’s participation in this year’s Souq Okaz festival is in line with the recently issued royal order to establish a council of royal reserves as part of King Salman’s keenness to preserve the natural environment, vegetation, and wildlife, to promote ecotourism, limit hunting and overgrazing, to prevent forest erosion, and to ensure the enjoyment of natural reserves based on the regulations governing them.
Souq Okaz visitors are introduced to Saudi wildlife
Souq Okaz visitors are introduced to Saudi wildlife
- The number of ostriches has grown inside reserves, owing to the improved environmental and climatic conditions as well as the management of wild ostrich groups
- The Arabian leopard, the most common wildcat species still spread in mountainous areas, was also featured alongside several endangered Accipitriformes
Saudi kitchen to provide 24,000 daily meals to Palestinians in Gaza
- The kitchen plans to produce 3,600,000 meals to Palestinians in central Gaza and to enable the employment of 40 local workers
- Dr. Abdullah Al-Rabeeah, the general supervisor of KSrelief, said that 90 percent of Gaza’s population is below the poverty line, lacking access to food, water, and medicine
RIYADH: King Salman Humanitarian Aid and Relief Center, also known as KSrelief, established a central kitchen in the Gaza Strip to support the Palestinian people as part of Saudi Arabia’s humanitarian efforts.
The Saudi kitchen has begun providing 24,000 daily hot meals since the start of Ramadan last week for Palestinians in the central Gaza towns of Deir Al-Balah and Al-Qarara.
The initiative is part of the Saudi Popular Campaign for the Relief of the Palestinian People in the Gaza Strip, in cooperation with the Saudi Center for Culture and Heritage.
At the end of the initiative period, the kitchen will have produced and distributed 3,600,000 meals to Palestinians in central Gaza and enabled the employment of 40 local workers, according to the Saudi Press Agency.
Dr. Abdullah Al-Rabeeah, the general supervisor of KSrelief, told SPA that the humanitarian crisis in the Gaza Strip is “one of the largest crises in the history of humanity.”
He highlighted that Palestinians are facing displacement and urgent humanitarian needs, with 90 percent of Gaza’s population below the poverty line, lacking access to food, water, medicine, and necessities for children and infants.
Saudi Arabia was one of the first countries to launch an air bridge, as well as sea and land convoys, sending aid to Gaza via over 80 planes and dozens of vessels, through the Jordanian and Egyptian crossings.
Dr. Al-Rabeeah noted that KSrelief used airdrops to deliver aid to Gaza after October 2023, when other means were not possible, the SPA added.
He said the Saudi kitchen will serve over 36,000 families and described it as “the largest central kitchen available for a group of displaced people.”
