Cairo: Saudi environmental police have caught an Asian expatriate for violating the kingdom’s environment law by uprooting trees without a licence in the holy region of Medina.
The Special Forces for Environmental Security (SFES) identified the offender as a Pakistani national and said legal procedures were taken against him while the seized trees were handed over to the National Centre for Vegetation Cover Development and Combating Desertification.
SFES did not say how many trees the offender had removed.
Cutting down, uprooting, removing or trading in them without a licence is an offence punishable by a maximum fine of SR20,000 per tree in Saudi Arabia. Violators often cut down trees to turn them into charcoal.
In recent years, Saudi Arabia has unveiled a series of pro-environment measures also aimed to address climate change.
In 2021, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman launched the Saudi Green Initiative (SGI), a plan pursuing three overarching targets, namely emission reduction, afforestation and land regeneration, as well as land and sea protection.
Envisaged as whole-of-society action, SGI strives to unite all of the kingdom’s work to combat climate change under one umbrella with clear-cut objectives including accelerating green transition.
The initiative envisages reducing carbon emissions by more than 4% of global contributions, through renewable energy projects to provide 50% of electricity production in the kingdom by 2030, and projects in the field of clean hydrocarbon technologies.
The Saudi government has designated March 27 as an official day to annually celebrate the SGI anniversary.
Last October, a roadmap to reach a 10 billion tree target was unveiled at the MENA Climate Week held in Riyadh.
