Fifty Ghaf Trees were planted on November 1st, 2007 in the desert near  National Avian  Research Centre in Sweihan.

The planting of the 50 Ghaf saplings is part of EWS-WWF’s one year campaign to make the Ghaf tree a national symbol for the UAE. On the website www.savetheghaftree.org supporters have been planting saplings in a virtual garden. For every ten trees planted online, EWS-WWF is planting one Ghaf tree in the real world.* More trees will be planted at the Sharjah Desert Park late 2007.

The Ghaf (prosopis cineraria), a tree with many names: the desert warden, umbrella tree, or tree of the dunes is an indigenous evergreen tree. The Ghaf is thriving in the heat and can live with very little water. Its root-network extends far, a grown up Ghaf tree can have 50-100 meters of roots, above ground, however, the tree grows slowly with 10-15 cm a year.

The 50 saplings were planted and irrigated with good help from our corporate member Canon Middle East. Also present at the event was Ogylvy, Gulf News, UAE University College of Food and Agriculture, the forestry department and technical affairs from the Environment Agency Abu Dhabi, and of course the very hospitable NARC Team.

After the tree planting NARC invited everyone to a fabulous lunch at their premises and a tour of NARC.

* Saplings are at this point only being planted for the first 1,000 trees in the virtual garden