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Saudi Arabia Lauds G20 Achievements on Environmental Sustainable Solutions

Saudi Arabia Lauds G20 Achievements on Environmental Sustainable Solutions
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Saudi Arabia Lauds G20 Achievements on Environmental Sustainable Solutions

Saudi Arabia Lauds G20 Achievements on Environmental Sustainable Solutions

Saudi Arabia expressed its appreciation for the accomplishments of the G20 in finding sustainable solutions to environmental challenges and strengthening efforts to tackle land degradation, a significant threat to biodiversity, food security, and climate change adaptation.

Saudi Deputy Minister of Environment Dr. Osama Ibrahim Faqeeha made the acknowledgement at the G20 environment and climate ministers' meeting held in New Delhi, India.

During his address, Dr. Faqeeha discussed various crucial topics related to environmental sustainability and climate change, such as the blue economy, resource efficiency, circular economy, land and water management, and biodiversity.

He highlighted the measures taken by the Kingdom to preserve marine and water ecosystems, including the Saudi Green Initiative, and emphasized the Saudi objective of achieving 30% marine reserves by 2030 and the implementation of a national strategy for the sustainability of the Red Sea, focusing on 15 sectors of the blue economy.

Dr. Faqeeha also underscored the Kingdom's collaborations with regional countries and the International Maritime Organization to establish the Red Sea as a special marine zone, which will take effect in January 2025, according to SPA.

He further commended the G20's support for the global platform CORDAP (Collaborative Action on Coral Reefs and People), which was launched during the Kingdom's G20 presidency.

He emphasized that the Kingdom has implemented a circular strategy for the carbon economy and introduced a new waste management law to increase recycling rates. Additionally, the Kingdom has adopted various strategies to safeguard natural resources, including the National Environment Strategy, Saudi Green Initiative, National Water Strategy, and the Food Security Strategy, which aims to reduce food waste by 50%.

The Saudi official expressed the Kingdom's gratitude for the G20's endeavors to enhance integrated water management, aligning with the water group platform established during the Kingdom's G20 presidency in 2020. He highlighted the Kingdom's significant investments in promoting renewable water sources within Saudi Arabia, such as expanding the desalination sector and maximizing the utilization of rainwater and treated water.

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Newborn White Rhino Takes 1st Giant Steps in Chile Zoo

Silverio, a twelve-day-old white rhino, runs next to his mother Hannah during his presentation at the Buin Zoo in Santiago, Chile, Tuesday, July 2, 2024. (AP Photo/Esteban Felix)
Silverio, a twelve-day-old white rhino, runs next to his mother Hannah during his presentation at the Buin Zoo in Santiago, Chile, Tuesday, July 2, 2024. (AP Photo/Esteban Felix)
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Newborn White Rhino Takes 1st Giant Steps in Chile Zoo

Silverio, a twelve-day-old white rhino, runs next to his mother Hannah during his presentation at the Buin Zoo in Santiago, Chile, Tuesday, July 2, 2024. (AP Photo/Esteban Felix)
Silverio, a twelve-day-old white rhino, runs next to his mother Hannah during his presentation at the Buin Zoo in Santiago, Chile, Tuesday, July 2, 2024. (AP Photo/Esteban Felix)

Hannah, a 13-year-old white rhinoceros, has delivered a newborn calf in a rare zoo birth for the almost endangered species.
The arrival of the male calf, named Silverio, two weeks ago marked the third time that a white rhino had ever been born in South America. The Buin Zoo in Chile's capital of Santiago unveiled Silverio to the public on Tuesday as he took his first giant-footed steps after 12 days of medical care in confinement.
The zoo hailed his birth as a “big achievement” for conservationists worldwide. Over the past year, only eight other southern white rhinos have been born, The Associated Press reported.
The director of Buin Zoo explained that a recent string of failed rhino romances had dashed the hopes of conservationists attempting to breed the species across the continent. But Hannah and Oliver — a pair of southern white rhinos shipped to Santiago all the way from sub-Saharan Africa just over a decade ago — have hit it off, producing three calves in this one zoo.
“There are several zoos in Latin America that have a rhino pair and did not manage to reproduce,” said zoo director Ignacio Idalsoaga. “We are contributing with a ninth calf to a species that has only a few left in the wild.”
A team of veterinarians closely monitoring Silverio declared him healthy on Tuesday.
The success story comes as fewer and fewer white rhinos roam the African plains. Northern white rhinos have effectively gone extinct, although the international scientific community has started to revive the species through assisted reproduction and stem cell research.
Southern white rhinos, the northern's close cousin and a more common species, have been classified as “nearly endangered” by the International Union for Conservation of Nature, the world’s main scientific authority on the status of species. There are just over 10,000 individual southern white rhinos left in the world, the vast majority of them in zoos.
That's still a major improvement from the turn of the 19th century, when the species was hunted to near oblivion. Intensive conservation efforts in the last few decades pulled southern white rhinos away from the brink of extinction, a rare example of robust recovery in the face of peril.
But that could change, conservationists say, as hunters continue to kill rhinos for their horns and the mammals can struggle to reproduce in captivity, with a gestation period of 18 months and often more than one male needed to stimulate reproduction.
Humans are the only predators to rhinos, reports the international conservation union, with hunters killing an estimated 1,000 rhinos a year. It says that roughly 17 rhinos are born each year.