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MONTANE

how to destroy the highlands

photographed by
CHRISTOPH ROBAUSCH

“Very slowly, one Thursday night at a time,
Oman is losing an ecosystem�br>
One of the best things to see when you get above 2,000m in Oman is the otherworldly, surreal contortion of a centuries-old juniper tree. You will find such twisted, gnarled wood in the most magical places, like Birkat Sharaf, five hours above Misfat and 11 above Wadi Sahtan on the other side. But you will also find them closer to concrete roads, like those snaking over the Jebel Akhdar that transport every half-hearted weekend tourist from Muscat. And somewhere there lies a problem.

For campers like bonfires and barbecues, even if that means attacking and burning wood so precious others collect bits of it. Very slowly, one Thursday night at a time, Oman is losing an ecosystem.

There is little that can be done except urging people to bring their own firewood and fuel, rather than dipping into the resources of a spot they feel no obligations to. It’s that easy, and difficult.

Oman’s mountains and the flora they boast of have always been special. The biogeographic term that describes such areas is ‘montane,�referring to highlands below the subalpine zone characterised by cooler temperatures, often higher rainfall than their lower regions and which support distinct communities of plants and animals.
In Oman’s Hajar range, the juniper is found in the highest regions around 2,000m and above it. The northern mountains contain 60 per cent of the country’s 1,204 species of vascular plants. Some flora bears resemblance to those found in the montane regions of Iran and parts of Afghanistan. Such similarities might point to a land bridge between Asia and Arabia when the sea was as much as 120m below present-day level. The same reason could also be given for similarities with certain plants in Somalia.

The ecosystem has a few very special species of fauna too, like the endangered Arabian tahr, the mountain gazelle, a handful of gecko species and 71 kinds of birds including the threatened lappet-faced vulture. Larger residents include Gordon’s wildcat, the striped hyena and, if you’re willing to sound particularly optimistic, even the occasional leopard.

But Oman’s superlative road network, an increasingly mobile population and the construction explosion mean that more people and their livestock are attacking swaths of vegetation that has no time or means to recover. Juniper woodlands above 2,000m show poor regeneration, while trees below this level are either dead or in very poor condition.

Locals have had traditional systems in place to balance their needs with those of their environment, like the hamiyaat, which designates protected areas free of livestock where fodder is cut by hand. But such practices have largely been abandoned or are destined to be forsaken as we change the way we live and relate to our surroundings.
For the juniper, even standing on the upper reaches of the highest mountains of Arabia might not be enough.