Qatar’s first and GCC’s biggest man-made forest, coming up some 50 kilometres away from Doha, aims to create a natural buffer zone of beauty and biodiversity promoting localised flora and fauna.

Speaking to Gulf Times at a recent event, Rafi Ohanian, operations manager, Nakheel Landscapes, the sub-contractors of the project under the main contractors Keppel Seghers said,“The project is based on the principles of ecology, sustainability and public safety. It aims to create a biodiversity thereby promoting the development of localised flora and fauna. The project will promote nature friendly type of recreational activities such as bird watching, walks in nature and picnics among others.”
Gulf Times had last month exclusively reported that this project by Ashghal, has about 95,000 trees, two artifical lakes with four islands, several mounds and an extensive irrigation system.
The trees consist of 28 varieties ranging in size from 100 to 200cms total planting height and nearly half of them have already been planted.
The lakes will have a total area of 280,000 sq metres, with shallow and deep marshes. This can be an ideal location of birdwatching for ornithologists as the whole area is expected to draw a large number of birds especially in the migratory season.
Ohanian said, “The shallow marsh favours the development of bird wildlife while the deep marsh is habitat for submerged plants and a diversity of other living organisms providing the birds with a ready source of food. Already hundreds of birds can be seen flocking the lake area.”
“We have three different planting areas for the trees such as dense planting, woodlot planting and the evergreen planting. The total number of trees in the dense area are 26945 while in the woodlot area there are 36176 trees and another 32010 in the evergreen sector,” he continued.
“These trees were mainly grown in two local nurseries in Al Shamal and Sheehania and some in Jordan Valley. Production in Jordan Valley was necessary due to the fast track nature of the project and the seasonal limitation to grow the trees to the required size in Qatar. Some slow growing varieties were procured at project specified sizes from Europe and the Far East, " the official explained.
The forest also has several artificial mounds giving a natural look to the forest. “Excavated material to form the lakes was used to create artificial yet natural looking mounds. The total mounds created are approximately 350,000 sqm in area and they show a gradual elevation reaching two metres from existing ground level,” Ohanian elaborated.
Located at the Doha North Sewage Treatment Works (DNSTW) plant, the project has an extensive irrigation facility. DNSTW is a sewerage infrastructure project to provide a treatment facility that will serve a projected population of over 900,000 people in 2020.
“Pressurised high quality treated sewage effluent water is extensively filtered and directly supplied from the plant. The irrigation network piping consists of, 22,000 linear metres of mainlines and submains; 853,000 linear metres of lateral ones; 380 solenoid valves; 17 valves and valve chambers; master valve and flow sensors,” added the official.