RAS TANURA: The Arabian Gulf coastline is chockfull of treasures, and the Grey Mangrove, known as Avicennia marina, will greet you readily at the surface.
Situated in the aptly-named Ras Tanura, its city moniker was derived from the Arabic for “Cape Oven,” due to it’s oven-like heat and humidity; this mangrove-fringed inlets and bays that skirt around Ras Tanura’s Mangrove Eco-Park protect that salty, humid strip of area where the land meets the sea. It is free and open to the public.
Launched in 2021, the park is the only one of its kind in the Kingdom, created to protect coastal wetlands and to serve as an educational playground for fun facts to rise to the surface, as part of the Saudi Green Initiative, which was also inaugurated in 2021. Authorities have committed to planting 100 million mangrove trees by 2030 as part of the effort to support the Kingdom’s sustainability goals and its net-zero emissions target by 2060.
Image taken at Ras Tanura’s Mangrove Eco Park, powered by Aramco. (Photo/Saudi Aramco)
On points, a portion of the Mangrove Eco-Park is designated for research activities, with ample views of wandering white flamingos and plenty of misty salt air.
