B. Natural resources

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1. Cultivated lands
2. Forest resources
3. Pastures and rangelands
4. Livestock resources
5. Water resources

1. Cultivated lands

Arable lands and permanent crops in ESCWA countries occupy about 17 million ha or 3.6 per cent of the total land area. For the region as a whole, no significant gain in cultivated lands was realized in the past decade. Some countries in the region such as Egypt did gain some cultivated land but some others had a slight decrease.

In the Gulf and Arabian Peninsula subregion only an area of 2.76 million ha or less than 1 per cent of the total area is under cultivation and permanent crops. The majority of these lands are in Saudi Arabia and Yemen.

Countries in the Fertile Crescent subregion have 11.6 million ha of cultivated land and permanent crops of about 16 per cent of the total land area, the great majority of which is in the Syrian Arab Republic and Iraq. As of 1989, arable land and permanent crops covered about 12.5 per cent, 4.2 per cent, 29.4 per cent and 30 per cent of the total land area of Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon and the Syrian Arab Republic, respectively.

The cultivated land in Egypt, as of 1989, occupied about 2.6 million ha or about 2.6 per cent of the total area, of which 2.3 million ha are under annual cultivation and the remaining are occupied by permanent crops.

The per capita arable land in the ESCWA region has decreased from 0.19 ha to 0.14 ha in the past decade, reflecting a decline of 26 per cent. Details of land--use classification in the countries of the ESCWA region are shown in table 1.

Small and fragmented agricultural landholdings are a characteristic of the region. The utilization of such fragmented ownership of land is seldom economically feasible. Therefore, such small-sized agricultural holdings are often left unexploited and fall an easy prey to desertification.

Agricultural practices in the West Asian countries remained backward until a few decades ago. Even today most farmers in the region do not follow rational land management and proper land maintenance and conservation practices. This is reflected in the very low crop yields and the general decrease in agricultural output. The main reasons for the decline in land productivity and degradation in the ESCWA region are the following:

(a) Agricultural lands lose their fertility unless replenished properly with fertilizers. In many parts of the region adequate fertilization is seldom carried out and, therefore, crop yields are very low;

(b) In rain-fed agriculture in the Fertile Crescent subregion the common crop rotation is that of cereal/fallow. If instead, cereal/legume or cereal/forage crop rotations are used, soil fertility will be maintained and soil particles will be protected from erosion by the continued presence of the plant cover;

(c) In the rain-fed areas where the terrain is sloping, rolling or undulating the ploughing pattern is usually that of upward-downward direction. In such cases gullies will be formed, soil eroded, land fertility lowered and the production reduced. Contour ploughing, terracing and strip cultivation practices, which are presently seldom used, must be applied if soil protection is to be secured;

(d) In flood plains where river water is used for irrigation, the common practice is that of flooding. Such practice, in the absence of proper drainage, will result in raising of the water table, salinization of the soil and lowering of crop yield. Large tracts of such lands have been abandoned for the loss of productivity and, therefore, have become decertified.

2. Forest resources

Forests and woodlands in the ESCWA region occupy about 8 million ha, or about 1.7 per cent of the total area. About 50 per cent of these forests are located in Yemen and the remaining are scattered in Iraq, Saudi Arabia, the Syrian Arab Republic, Lebanon and Jordan. Forests in the ESCWA region comprise slow-growing and stunted trees of poor wood quality with no significant economic value. Their present use is for fuel production, fodder, construction material and minor local industries. Their chief and most important use, however, is for site protection from degradation and subsequent desertification.

Forests in the ESCWA region are, mainly, publicly owned and have been exploited by the users arbitrarily. In the not too distant past, natural forests covered vast areas in the region. In the absence of a sound silvicultural system and effective forest legislation with continued excessive exploitation of forest resources, however, enormous losses of plant cover as well as of soil and water have resulted. Forests in the region have been so heavily exploited and poorly managed that they became alarmingly depleted. The main causes of forest degradation are reviewed below:

(a) Excessive tree cutting

Forest users usually clear cut forest trees with no regard for future regeneration. Tree cutting became so heavy in the past few decades, especially where alternative fuel was not available, that most accessible areas around villages and along transportation routes have been cleared of their forest cover. What accelerated the widespread eradication of the tree cover in recent years are the widespread road networks and the increasing hauling capacity of the transport vehicles;

(b) Grazing in the forests

Grazing with unlimited numbers of animals under an unplanned grazing system has led to the destruction of the forests' surface vegetation. Grazing is especially detrimental to natural regeneration of the tree cover due to the damage done to the seedlings, sprouts and young trees. The most damaging of the grazing animals vis-r-vis forest resources are goats. Other significant damage which grazing does to forests, besides the consumption of the plant material, is the continued movement across the slopes by the herds where the soil is trampled, pulverized and easily taken away by the surging runoff water and powerful winds;

(c) Shifting cultivation

Owing to population pressure and scarcity of suitable agricultural lands, large areas of forests are cleared of trees, surface vegetation and stones and converted to croplands. Since these forest lands are usually sloping with shallow soil and low fertility, they seldom produce economically feasible yields. Hence, these lands are soon abandoned and other forest lands are similarly cultivated and also abandoned and so on. Eventually large areas of forest lands in the region have been cut down in this manner and the soil is left unprotected and subject to various forms of desertification;

(d) Forest fires

In the absence of adequate preventive measures and fire suppression capability, fires consume annually large tracts of forests in the region. Forest fires once they start do not stop until either they burn all trees and surface vegetation in their path or they are confronted with physical barriers or change in wind direction. All countries in the region lack proper fire look-out stations with suitable reporting facilities and the basic forest firefighting equipment. Forest fires are especially harmful to young tree growth and shrubby vegetation.

3. Pastures and rangelands

Permanent pasture and rangelands in the ESCWA region cover 16 million ha. Countries with sizeable rangelands are Saudi Arabia, Yemen, the Syrian Arab Republic and Iraq, with 73 per cent, 13.8 per cent, 6.9 per cent and 3.5 per cent of the region's total rangeland area, respectively. Forest lands in the region, as noted above, also provide grazing to varying degrees and constitute a significant forage resource in many localities.

In addition to natural rangelands, there are large tracts of fallow lands in the rain-fed and irrigated croplands which provide substantial forage in early winter and spring and the stubble of cereals for grazing after the harvest in the summer.

Depending upon variations in climatic, edaphic, and physiographic elements, there exist in the region various natural rangeland habitats and plant types which may be grouped as follows:

(a) Mountain and alpine Pastures

These pastures receive 500 mm of precipitation or more annually. They exhibit a dense herbaceous cover of annual and perennial grasses, legumes and herbs, especially in the alpine meadows. These latter rangelands are found only in the higher mountain peaks of Iraq, the Syrian Arab Republic and Lebanon. Alpine pastures, if excessively grazed, will be invaded by the unpalatable thorny shrubs and in some areas by poisonous plants;

(b) Steppe rangelands

These rangelands receive 200500 mm of rain annually and occur at elevations of below 1,000 metres. Adjacent to cereal rain-fed croplands, they occur extensively in the Fertile Crescent subregion. Their vegetation cover is less dense than that of the mountain pasture and it consists of grasses, legumes and shrubs;

(c) Desert rangelands

Generally, there is no sharp demarcation line in vegetation types between steppe and desert rangelands except where the annual rainfall drops sharply below 150 mm. Desert rangelands have a broken vegetation cover, since the perennial vegetation is restricted to valleys and depressions, while droughtresistant legumes and grasses may be growing in a scattered pattern, especially in depressions;

(d) Littoral rangelands

Littoral rangelands are found in coastal areas along the Arabian Gulf, Indian Ocean, and the Red Sea. The plant cover is mainly that of shrubs with a deep root system, and some grasses. In saline areas of Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, and Iraq, there are extensive tracts covered with saltbush vegetation.

Natural rangelands and pastures are very important natural resources, not just because they provide 70-80 per cent of the feeding requirements of the grazing livestock, but also because they are significant for water harvesting and they provide the sites, with protective cover against desertification.

The continued over-exploitation and mismanagement of rangelands over prolonged periods of time has led to their depletion and in many areas to their exhaustion. Where the plant cover is not totally eliminated, many beneficial and nutritious perennials have disappeared and only a few sparsely scattered annuals and thorny and unpalatable perennials remain. The deterioration of rangelands in the region deprives the countries of cheap and important animal fodder, and leads to accelerated erosion and subsequent desertification. Major practices which cause rangelands deterioration are the following:

(i) Uncontrolled grazing

Grazing in the ESCWA region is, generally, carried out with no regard for the carrying capacity of the range or any consideration given to its future regeneration. No limitation is made on the type and number of grazing animals in any rangeland area at any season of the year, including the critical reseeding periods, since no planned grazing system, whether deferred or rotational, is ever applied;

The grazing intensity in the majority of the ESCWA countries increased in 1990 in comparison with 1980. Expressed in terms of number of sheep per head/ha, grazing intensity is an indication of both the available animal food and of the risk of degradation of the grazed land;

It is axiomatic that with the increase in livestock numbers and fixed rangeland resources, the grazing intensity will increase. Table 2 shows grazing intensities in the countries of the ESCWA region for the years 1980 and 1990. It is clearly evident that all the countries, except Iraq and Lebanon, had an increase in grazing intensity to various degrees over the past decade;

Table 2. Grazing intensity expressed in terms of number of sheep per hectare in the ESCWA region for 1980 and 1990

Source: FAO Production Yearbook, vols. 35 (1981) and 44 (1990); ECWA Regional Assessment of Desertification in the ECWA Region (E/ECWA/AGR/83/7), 1984.
Note: 1 Sheep = 1 goat = 0.2 cattle;

= 0.2 buffalo; = 0.2 camels

a/ In Hay 1990, Democratic Yemen and the Republic of Yemen merged to form a single State, Yemen.

(ii) Fuelwood gathering

Gathering of fuelwood and uprooting of perennials is a common practice in rural communities, especially in remote and inaccessible areas. The gathered material is chiefly used locally but is sometimes transported to urban centres where it is sold at premium prices;

(iii) Cultivation of marginal lands

In some of the dry steppe rangelands receiving 200-300 mm of rain annually, ranges are cleared of their natural vegetation cover and then cultivated for cereal production. Such practice occurs especially where population pressure is high and suitable agricultural lands are scarce. These cropped rangelands seldom produce economically feasible yields because the rainfall is usually insufficient for optimum plant growth. Consequently, these cultivated patches are soon abandoned and left without any protective cover against water and wind erosion.

To sum up, natural rangelands in the region have been, and still are, heavily exploited and primitively managed and have, therefore, severely deteriorated. Further deterioration of these resources will, no doubt, occur unless effective corrective measures are soon taken.

In addition to promulgation of proper legislative measures and adopting sound management approaches towards protecting these potentially renewable natural resources, several other measures will also have to be taken if adequate development of these resources is to be realized. These include introduction of alternative feed resources, formulation of range development plans incorporating rotational and deferred grazing systems, utilization of saline lands for growing salt tolerant forage crops, and introducing forage legumes into crop rotations in the rain-fed agricultural lands.

4. Livestock resources

Livestock population in the ESCWA region was estimated in 1990 at 78.4 million head. Sheep, goats and cattle accounted for 57 per cent, 22 per cent and 11 per cent of the livestock total, respectively. Details of livestock population for the years 1980 and 1990 are as shown in table 3. A gain of about 13 per cent in livestock population was attained during the 1980s.

With the exception of the small Gulf States, livestock production is an important subsector of agriculture in all countries of the ESCWA region. Many farmers in the region depend largely on livestock for food, additional income and work power. To the nomads and transhumant population in the region, livestock production is the major source of livelihood.

Despite some gains obtained in the past decade, livestock production remained relatively neglected and did not receive a fair share of attention in the national development plans. However, in recent years modest progress was made in the production of dairy products and poultry in most of the countries of the region. The pastoral and sedentary livestock sector, on the other hand, though contributing most to animal products in the region, remained largely neglected.

5. Water resources

The Gulf and Arabian Peninsula subregion has no perennial rivers of any significance. There are, however, some intermittent streams which flow into the sea during the rainy season. The total available water resources in this subregion are estimated at 8.7 billion ml, of which about 3.9 billion ml is surface water. The annual ground water discharge is about 3.9 billion ml while that of natural recharge is only 2.7 billion ml or an annual exhaustion of the groundwater reserve of 1.2 billion ml No water storage facilities of great significance are found in this subregion, except the Harib Dam in Yemen and the earth dams in Jizan and Abha in Saudi Arabia.

The total available water resources in the Fertile Crescent countries are about 65 billion ml of which surface water is about 60.5 billion ml All countries in this subregion have per-manent rivers with different discharge capacities. Several water storage facilities have been erected in this subregion in recent decades. In the Syrian Arab Republic, the huge Tabka Dam was constructed on the Euphrates in the 1970s and several smaller dams were erected on the other rivers of the country. In Jordan the Talal Dam has been built on the Yarmuk River and a number of other smaller dams are also being built. In Iraq several huge dams have been constructed in the past four decades on the Tigris, Euphrates, the greater and lesser Zabs and Diyalah rivers.

In Egypt, the Nile is the main source of irrigation water. According to the Nile Water Agreement signed with Sudan in 1959, Egypt's share from the Nile discharge is 55.5 billion ml In addition, some groundwater is also used for irrigation in the New Valley, along the Nile banks, the oases, Wadi ElSalhia and the Sinai. A very huge water storage facility, the Aswan High Dam, was constructed in 1956 on the Nile, just north of the Sudanese--Egyptian border.

Table 3. Livestock production in the ESCWA region for 1980 and 1990 (in 1.000 head)

Those countries of the ESCWA region which are deficient in surface water rely mainly on pumping from groundwater reserves for various purposes. As the rate of discharge from these water aquifers usually exceeds that of natural recharge, a rapid exhaustion of the groundwater is clearly evident in the exploited areas and it is reflected by continued lowering of water tables and the drying of the dug wells. The details of the water resources for each country in the ESCWA region are given in table 4.