Saudi Arabia has restored one million hectares of degraded land and planted more than 159 million trees, marking one of the biggest milestones under the Saudi Green Initiative since it began in 2021. The programme, which now aims to rehabilitate 40 million hectares and plant 10 billion trees across the kingdom, has grown restored land to a million hectares in under five years. Officials from the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification have called the achievement proof that large-scale land restoration is possible even in some of the driest parts of the world, positioning Saudi Arabia as a working example for other water-scarce nations facing worsening drought and desertification. One million hectares still represents a small fraction of the 40 million eventually targeted, so the real test now shifts from proving the concept works to sustaining the pace long enough to actually reach that far larger number.
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