‘Range School’ equips badia residents with skills to manage grazing lands

AMMAN — Eight residents of Southern Badia graduated from "Range School" on Tuesday after gaining the skills and knowledge required to manage grazing lands in their areas.

Sharifa Zein Alsharaf Bint Nasser, chairperson of the Hashemite Fund for Badia Development (HFBD) board of trustees, attended the graduation ceremony of the virtual school's first class.

The graduates have attended a three-day special training on managing rangelands, Sharifa Zein said.

“The local community is best in preserving the natural resources of the badia and managing them, but [they] need training and rehabilitation,” she said, adding that the school is aimed at meeting these needs.

The school, "the first of its kind in Jordan", targets all members of the badia community, including women and young people, to create a generation aware of its natural resources that must be preserved and developed to benefit generations that follow, according to Sharifa Zein.

A "simple and scientific curriculum" is designed to enable graduates to become pioneers in their communities in managing rangelands in the badia, with the training course combining traditional knowledge and the science of rangeland management.

The Range School is part of the Ecological Systems and Welfare Project in Southern Badia which started in 2013 and will continue to 2017, according to HFBD Director General Raed Tabini. 

The fund is implementing the project in cooperation with the National Centre for Agricultural Research and Extension (NCARE) and with the support of the World Bank, Tabini noted.

“The project aims to improve the badia environment in a way that guarantees good environmental and social development,” he said.

Three poverty pockets are benefiting from the project: Jafer and Husseiniya in Maan Governorate in Southern Badia, and Ruweished in Mafraq Governorate in Northern Badia, according to Tabini.

“Two rangeland reserves in Jafer and Husseiniya, with an area of 15,000 dunums each, will be rehabilitated; in addition, two water reservoirs of 75 cubic metres each will be dug to help cattle breeders there,” he added.

Graduate Ahmad Abu Tayeh delivered a speech on behalf of the graduates praising the training they received and its role in reducing unemployment in the badia, noting that quarries are a threat to grazing lands.

In an interview with The Jordan Times on the sidelines of the ceremony, Sharifa Zein said that HFBD came up with the Range School project due to the quick deterioration of rangelands over the last few years.

“We had to do something that gives us flexibility to be everywhere and anywhere at any given time,” she said, noting that it is a virtual school which makes it mobile.

The school has short-term and long-term benefits, Sharifa Zein added, saying it secures employment for graduates and teaches them how to preserve their lands and benefit from them.

She expressed hope that this training proves successful in the long term to offer it to areas beyond Southern Badia.