Muscat: The Sultanate of Oman joined Arab countries in celebrating Arab Agriculture Day, which this year highlights the importance of Arab rangeland sustainability as a fundamental pillar for sustainable agricultural development and ensuring resource sustainability for future generations, underscoring the vital role rangelands play in supporting livestock, preserving natural resources, and proposal-enhancing the stability of rural and pastoral communities.
The Sultanate of Oman emphasised the importance of enhancing sustainable rangeland management in light of the growing challenges faced due to climate change, fluctuating rainfall, rising temperatures, water scarcity, land degradation, and unregulated grazing, alongside the importance of deploying modern technologies to monitor rangeland conditions and support decisions related to their management and restoration.
Eng. Mansour Hamoud Al Wadhahi, Assistant Director General for Agricultural Development at the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Water Resources, explained that the theme of Arab Agriculture Day this year embodies an established reality that sustainable agricultural development begins with land, water, vegetation cover, and natural resources upon which production is based, noting that rangeland sustainability is linked to natural capital, the rural economy, livestock, and resource sustainability.
He pointed out that natural rangelands represent one of the most important resources connecting humans, land, livestock, and ecosystems in the Arab world, due to the feed they provide for livestock, their role in preserving vegetation cover and soil, supporting biodiversity, and curbing land degradation and desertification, in addition to their contribution to providing sources of income and livelihoods for rural and pastoral communities.
He indicated that the Sultanate of Oman is characterised by environmental and geographical diversity that has created different patterns of rangelands and pastoral systems, extending from mountain and desert environments to seasonal pastoral systems in Dhofar Governorate. He explained that attention to natural rangelands in the Sultanate of Oman stemmed from an early awareness of their importance to livestock, the environment, and local communities.
In this context, he pointed to the issuance of the Law on Rangelands and Livestock Management by Royal Decree No. 8/2003, which designated natural and cultivated rangelands as State property dedicated to public utility, assigning the competent authority the responsibilities of replanting degraded rangelands and protecting them from overgrazing, alongside updating legislative aspects through Ministerial Decision No. 1/2025 amending some provisions of the Executive Regulations of the Law on Rangelands and Livestock Management.
He touched upon the initiatives implemented by the Sultanate of Oman in the field of rangeland sustainability, including the Rangeland Resting Initiative in Dhofar Governorate, which the Sultanate of Oman launched on the sidelines of the 16th Conference of the Parties (COP16) to the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD), held in Riyadh in December 2024, with the participation of several national and international partners.
He noted that the initiative aims to manage pastoral resources in the governorate, curb their degradation, and reclaim approximately 10,000 hectares of degraded land through regulating grazing, resting rangelands, and restoring them.
The Assistant Director General for Agricultural Development stressed the importance of transitioning in rangeland management from reacting to degradation after it occurs to proactive management based on early monitoring and forecasting. He highlighted the importance of deploying remote sensing, geographic information systems (GIS), satellite imagery, climate data, field monitoring, and digital maps to build databases that help identify areas most vulnerable to degradation, monitor rangeland recovery after resting, and support decisions related to grazing timing, density, and intervention zones.
He explained that rangeland sustainability is directly linked to livestock and production costs, as a decline in their productive capacity leads to higher feed costs, increased pressure on water resources, and rising production costs, in addition to impacting the ability of pastoral communities to persevere, emphasizing that rangeland restoration represents an environmental, economic, and social issue simultaneously.
He noted that estimated livestock numbers in the Sultanate of Oman reached approximately 4 million head in 2024, while local production in the same year reached around 51,000 tonnes of red meat, 241,000 tonnes of fresh milk, and 150,000 tonnes of poultry meat, indicating that these indicators reflect the importance of rangelands and livestock as a productive and economic base within the agricultural development system in the Sultanate of Oman.
He affirmed that the challenges facing Arab rangelands transcend national borders, given the common challenges posed by phenomena such as drought, desertification, climate change, land degradation, and water scarcity, making the strengthening of Arab cooperation and the exchange of expertise, data, and successful experiences in this field a necessity to support the sustainability of pastoral resources.
He pointed out the potential to develop Arab cooperation in rangelands from general expertise exchange into practical partnerships, particularly in areas of exchanging data related to rangeland condition, vegetation cover, drought, and degradation, as well as utilising remote sensing technologies and GIS to prepare periodic maps of Arab rangeland conditions, alongside documenting Arab experiences in resting rangelands, regulating grazing, rehabilitation, and nature-based solutions, allowing each country to benefit from experiences suited to its environmental and social conditions.
It is worth noting that Arab Agriculture Day falls on 27 September each year, marking the establishment of the Arab Organisation for Agricultural Development in 1972. Arab countries, as well as major agricultural entities and companies, take advantage of this occasion to highlight achievements and sustainable plans to ensure food security and protect environmental resources.
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