Farah Atiyat
Amman – World Resources Institute data revealed that “Jordan registered 772 forest fire alerts (VIIRS) over the past three years.”
At a time when it recorded “47 alerts (VIIRS) of forest fires in Jordan between April of this year and the day before yesterday.”
According to the data of the Institute of Electronic Resources on Forests platform, “fires in Jordan were responsible for 59% of the loss of tree cover in Jordan between 2001 and 2021.”
According to the institute’s data, “between 2001 and 2021, Jordan lost four hectares of tree cover as a result of fires, and three hectares due to other factors.” “The year with the highest number of tree cover losses due to fires was 2004; where he lost two hectares; That is, about 66% of the total loss rate in the cap in that year.
The same data still indicates that the Ajloun governorate is responsible for 78% of the total loss of tree cover between 2001 and 2020, as this region witnessed the largest loss of its cover, at 6 hectares compared to an average of 2 hectares.
Despite this, official statistics previously published by Al-Ghad showed a significant decrease in forest encroachment cases. After the years 2020 and 2021 recorded 88 and 71 seizures, respectively, the number of seizures last year only exceeded 44 forest seizures. Irbid governorate ranked second, with a rate of loss of tree cover, reaching 0.913 hectares, followed by Balqa governorate with 0.655 hectares, then Jerash governorate, which lost about 0.0654 hectares.
Despite this decline, the Balqa Governorate was able to recover 50% of the total tree cover gained between 2001 and 2012, with an increase rate of 4.19 hectares, compared to an average of 0.698 hectares.
