Rangeland restoration in Jordan transformed a once-feared botanical garden into a thriving grazing partnership, boosting native plant species while lifting incomes for local families.
When Princess Basma bint Ali began establishing Jordan’s first botanical garden in the mid-2000s, local sheep and goat herders worried the sanctuary near Amman would compromise their traditional grazing areas and livelihoods. Two decades later, rangeland restoration in Jordan proved the opposite true, turning a site long plagued by overgrazing into a shared asset benefiting both people and nature.
The Community-Based Rangeland Rehabilitation initiative centers on the Royal Botanic Garden‘s 180-hectare site in Tal al-Rumman, a mountainous wooded area north of Amman. Officials built a seed bank, plant nurseries, and a visitor center while restoring degraded land. In consultation with local communities, grazing was halted entirely in 2008 for three years, allowing experts to monitor vegetation recovery and calculate sustainable future grazing limits.
The results validated the approach. Biomass production jumped by approximately 30% in each of the first three years and continued to rise, reaching an estimated 250 tonnes by 2024. Rangeland restoration in Jordan enabled wild native plant species to rebound from 436 recorded in 2006 to more than 600 today, including 22 endangered species. Local herders now describe thyme, narcissus, and Black Iris, Jordan’s endemic, endangered national flower, returning to hillsides where they had grown scarce.
To ease the transition, the botanical garden initially provided fodder for herders’ livestock while vegetation recovered. Animals gradually returned under rotational grazing plans, allowing herders to bring livestock into the restored area for up to 120 days during summer and autumn, when grazing elsewhere becomes depleted. In exchange, herders help protect the site from illegal grazing and tree-cutting by outside intruders.
Rangeland restoration in Jordan extends well beyond vegetation recovery into broader community development. Experts worked with herders to improve livestock management practices, including isolating rams from ewes before the breeding season to boost pregnancy rates. The initiative trained veterinary health assistants and delivered vaccination programs supporting herd health across the region.
Additional training in alternative income-generating activities, such as dairy production, mushroom growing, beekeeping, and handicrafts workshops for local women, diversified household earnings beyond grazing alone. Many residents also found direct employment within the botanical garden itself. These combined opportunities drove participation from just five families at the initiative’s inception to more than 50 today.
Rangeland restoration in Jordan combined vegetation monitoring with community training in dairy production, beekeeping, and handicrafts, growing participation from five families at the initiative’s start to more than 50 today while earning recognition as a UN World Restoration Flagship. Photo by Todd Brown, courtesy of UN Environment Programme.
The United Nations designated this rangeland restoration in Jordan as a World Restoration Flagship, an honor reserved for outstanding examples of ecosystem revival that demonstrate the ten Restoration Principles guiding the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration. The recognition reflects both ecological outcomes and the collaborative model connecting conservation science with community livelihoods.
West Asia ranks among the most water- and land-scarce regions on Earth, having struggled for decades with drought and desertification driving food insecurity, biodiversity loss, and forced migration. Rangeland restoration in Jordan offers a demonstrated pathway to address these interconnected challenges simultaneously, rather than treating environmental protection and economic survival as competing priorities.
The Royal Botanic Garden has shared lessons learned from this rangeland restoration in Jordan with community conservation projects elsewhere in the region, including Egypt and Saudi Arabia. Staff published scientific papers and educational materials, including posters, brochures, and videos, while presenting the program at conferences both domestically and internationally, extending its influence beyond Jordan’s borders.
Rangeland restoration in Jordan demonstrates that ecosystem revival and pastoral livelihoods can reinforce rather than undermine each other when local communities participate as partners rather than obstacles. The site now functions as a demonstration model, as Princess Basma bint Ali describes it, showing restoration’s potential across Jordan and the broader region, proving that degraded rangelands can return to abundance, resilience, and productivity within a single generation.
Countries worldwide have committed to restoring one billion hectares of land under global frameworks including the Paris Climate Agreement, the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, Land Degradation Neutrality targets, and the Bonn Challenge. Yet monitoring restoration quality and progress remains challenging globally. Rangeland restoration in Jordan, transparently tracked through the UN Decade’s Framework for Ecosystem Restoration Monitoring, provides a verified example of large-scale, long-term success that other water-stressed regions can study and potentially replicate.
