Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
According to Khalid Irani (2004), former director of the RSCN (now minister of
the environment for the government of Jordan), one of the most important environ-
mental issues facing Jordan is its limited water resources. Indeed, Jordan is actually
the tenth poorest country in the world in terms of water, and by 2015 is expected to
be tapping into all its available water supplies and beginning to look elsewhere for
additional sources. In the meantime, Jordan has started to mine the last of its fos-
sil waters in a nonsustainable way. There is thus an intense water demand pressure
on all natural habitats (see chapter 6, for example), and sometimes the degree of
water withdrawal means that the landscape becomes unsustainable for agriculture.
To counter this tendency, the RSCN promotes the message that “yellow is nice” in
terms of maintaining natural deserts rather than attempting to turn them into unsus-
tainable green pastures (Irani 2004).
There are also many threats to the wildlife such as overhunting, which occurred
to such a severe degree from the 1960s to 1980s that it led to the formation of the
RSCN. Today, the mission of the RSCN is to conserve nature, wildlife, and wildlife
habitat, and to integrate these with socioeconomic programs at the same time as gen-
erating public support (RSCN 2009). This new mission, therefore, focuses on public
action directed toward achieving environmental sustainability in terms of linking
economy with ecology (Boyce, Narain, and Stanton 2007).
Jordan is in the process of building a comprehensive, computerized database
about national biodiversity based on RSCN research which will be linked to a GIS
system (Irani 2004) with reference to transborder concerns (Johnson 2007). The
public is reached through the RSCN website and different publications (such as
Al
Rem
magazine), some of which are specifically targeted to students and children to
encourage them to venture outside and use and enjoy the protected areas through
engaging in various activities. The RSCN also uses different interactive techniques
to promote biodiversity conservation such as the “Birds Know No Boundaries” proj-
ect which links the migration of birds through the Jordan Rift Valley to satellite
data and the Internet, thereby allowing viewers to follow the birds' movement in
real time. The whole bird migration story is fascinating for students because they
also learn about geography, different habitats, avian behavior, and so on. RSCN also
participates in developing nationwide school curricula about both birds and water
conservation issues (see chapter 6). Part of this process involves the use of innovative
pedagogical approaches such as designing board games and memory cards.
In addition, the RSCN has a training program in Arabic which is relevant to con-
cerns of the greater region, including running ten workshops per year which have
been attended by Syrians, Palestinians, Lebanese, Saudi Arabians, Egyptians, and,
most recently, Iraqis. The top training priority for this outreach program for various
environmental institutions was identified as being capacity building rather than spe-
cific technical training in biodiversity monitoring. The RSCN believes that it is very
important to work with institutions to build their capacity by allowing them to be
able to adapt the process to conserve nature and biodiversity in their own particular
way once they return home (Irani 2004). Additionally, the RSCN has also estab-
lished a partnership with local police to strengthen their environmental enforcement
role. A network of enforcement was created by teaching an ongoing course at the
police academy which eventually led to the establishment of an environmental police
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