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Saudi Geological Parks Nearing UNESCO Recognition

A Glimpse of Saudi Arabia’s geological heritage (Asharq Al-Awsat)
A Glimpse of Saudi Arabia’s geological heritage (Asharq Al-Awsat)
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Saudi Geological Parks Nearing UNESCO Recognition

A Glimpse of Saudi Arabia’s geological heritage (Asharq Al-Awsat)
A Glimpse of Saudi Arabia’s geological heritage (Asharq Al-Awsat)

The National Center for Vegetation Cover Development and Combating Desertification in Saudi Arabia is working to establish and enhance several sites with unique geological and cultural significance.

The goal is to have more than ten of these sites recognized as UNESCO Global Geoparks, joining a list of 213 sites worldwide.

The Center informed Asharq Al-Awsat that registering these sites with UNESCO brings many advantages.

The primary benefit is international recognition, which attracts global attention to the geological and cultural importance of these sites. This increased visibility draws tourists, especially those interested in geological tourism, and boosts scientific and educational activities.

The sites provide an excellent environment for teaching Earth’s history and encouraging scientific studies.

Moreover, the Center noted that this recognition promotes the region’s cultural heritage.

The combination of geological and cultural features offers visitors unique experiences, showcasing how humans adapted to natural changes.

It also supports environmental protection and sustainable development by raising awareness and encouraging local communities and authorities to preserve these areas.

A delegation from UNESCO’s Global Geoparks Committee has recently inspected the Geological Park in Northern Riyadh, 120 kilometers from the capital, and the Salma Geological Park in Hail, northern Saudi Arabia.

The assessment tour is set to continue with visits to eight more parks before final approval under UNESCO's Global Geoparks Program.

Saudi Arabia’s Geological Riches

According to geological experts, geological parks represent unique areas that delve into the depths of ancient history, revealing numerous events and stories linked to geographical and historical realities, past, present, and future.

These unique geological formations, with their diverse landmarks and structures shaped over millions of years, explore the connections between geology, local communities, culture, and the natural world of all living organisms that have thrived and vanished on this defined geographical patch.

Saudi Arabia boasts what can be described as “multi-faceted geological museums,” uncovering most geological eras that have left their marks on planet Earth, with a heritage dating back around 550 million years.

This includes formations in the Makkah region, where geologists suggest successive volcanic eruptions shaped its volcanic belt in a straight line, and in AlUla province, adorned over millions of years by weathering agents revealing intricate details.

Also noteworthy are other formations in the Riyadh and Tabuk regions.

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Culture

As Gaza War Rages, Palestinian Culture Stifled in Israel

A woman holds a key symbolizing the homes left by Palestinians in 1948, during a rally along the border east of Khan Yunis in the southern Gaza Strip on May 1, 2023 marking the 75th anniversary of the Nakba. (AFP)
A woman holds a key symbolizing the homes left by Palestinians in 1948, during a rally along the border east of Khan Yunis in the southern Gaza Strip on May 1, 2023 marking the 75th anniversary of the Nakba. (AFP)
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As Gaza War Rages, Palestinian Culture Stifled in Israel

A woman holds a key symbolizing the homes left by Palestinians in 1948, during a rally along the border east of Khan Yunis in the southern Gaza Strip on May 1, 2023 marking the 75th anniversary of the Nakba. (AFP)
A woman holds a key symbolizing the homes left by Palestinians in 1948, during a rally along the border east of Khan Yunis in the southern Gaza Strip on May 1, 2023 marking the 75th anniversary of the Nakba. (AFP)

Comedian Ayman Nahas said he has kept a "low profile" since October 7, fearing reprisals as an Arab artist in Israel while the country wages war in the Gaza Strip.

He is one of many Arab artists in Israel or annexed east Jerusalem who describe facing increasing hostility and harassment, and fearing looming funding cuts or arrests.

"You never know where your place is and that is not the right atmosphere to perform," said Nahas, who is also the artistic director at the Arabic-language Sard theater in Haifa, in Israel's north.

His theater depends on government subsidies "like 99 percent of cultural spaces" in Israel, he said, AFP reported.

But he fears the money could be cut, as happened in 2015 to Al-Midan, another theater in the mixed Arab-Jewish city of Haifa, after it put on a play inspired by the story of a prisoner jailed by Israel over an attack on troops.

One 25-year-old performer, who asked to use the pseudonym Elias to avoid a backlash, said he has put acting aside and became a swimming pool attendant because he was fed up with only getting stereotyped roles.

Other Arab actors say that since the war, they can no longer find work in Israel.

Elias has finally found a role in Berlin.

"I have had to go into exile to practice my art," he told AFP in a Tel Aviv cafe.

"I don't wear my 'Free Palestine' bracelet anymore and I take care about what I put on social media. I have friends who have been visited by the police."

Non-profit group Mossawa has documented an increase in human rights violations against Israel's Arab minority since October, including arrests, discrimination at work and harassment at schools, as well as curbs on the right to protest.

Singer Dalal Abu Amneh, who is also a neuroscientist, was detained for 48 hours for a social media post after Hamas's October 7 attack that said "the only victor is God".

Abu Amneh later said she had been harassed in her Jewish-majority hometown of Afula in northern Israel. Her lawyer said she had received hundreds of "death threats".

About 20 percent of Israel's 9.5 million inhabitants are Arab, and many of them identify as Palestinian.

They say they are frequently the targets of discrimination by the Jewish majority, and those complaints have grown through more than nine months of war between Israel and Palestinian militants in Gaza.

Huda Imam, who promotes Palestinian cultural sites in Jerusalem, said that "a cultural silence has taken hold since October 7".

"There has been a shock, an inability to produce out of fear and respect" for the war's victims, she added.

"There was a Palestinian cultural life before the war, especially in east Jerusalem," Imam said, referring to the sector Israel captured in 1967 and later annexed in a move never recognised by most of the international community.

"Now people don't go out."

And it is primarily exiles "who give a voice to Palestine", said Imam, highlighting the rapper Saint Levant who played at the Coachella music festival in the United States in April, and the European-based singer and flute player Nai Barghouti.

Palestinians still express themselves through their "living heritage, like drinking coffee or dancing dabkeh," a traditional dance, said artist Hani Amra.

Some artists wondered about the relevance of their work now.

"You turn on the television and you see the war live. The reality is more powerful than any artistic work," Amer Khalil, the director of east Jerusalem's Al-Hakawati, also known as the Palestinian National Theater.

The theater, founded in 1984, "has been closed more than 200 times in 40 years" and is again in the crosshairs of Israeli authorities, said Khalil.

"Running a theatre is always difficult, but after October 7 things became even more complicated," he said, adding that Al-Hakawati was preparing a play about that day.

"It is a game, like censorship, it comes and goes."