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#Hima
The area had become part of a #hima, or “protected place,” in Arabic.
Himas are set aside for rotational grazing or protected from hunting, logging, or other extractive uses.
The concept dates back more than 1,400 years, predating the spread of Islam,
but is imbued with religious significance for many members of Jordan’s Bedouin community.
“Our religion tells us that whoever plants a tree
—and an animal, a bird, or a person eats from it, or takes shade in it, or lives in it
—then he has good deeds, and his reward is with God,” al-Alimat told me.
Over the past century, as formerly nomadic Bedouin were encouraged to settle
and traditional pasturelands became government property,
himas disappeared,
and Jordan’s Badia deteriorated.
With overgrazing and climate change threatening to turn more of this fragile environment into a true desert,
the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) made a suggestion
—why not bring back the concept of the hima to protect the Badia in a way that would also benefit the herders who rely on it?