Hima as a Reversing Instrument to Bring Communities Back to the Land

Abstract

The demand for urgent and immediate action plans to deliver a healthy and resilient environment is prioritized in recovering from the COVID 19 global pandemic. The disrupted nature and its broken ecological system revealed its vulnerability in co** with physiological and environmental threats. One of the causes is named desertification. Despite the extremely low density of Riyadh, its ongoing urban sprawl is observed clearly with the shrinkage of Wadi Hanifa that has sustained Riyadh. Human exploitation of land for human uses is prohibited explicitly in any sustainable environmental certification. Due to rapid urbanization caused by unprecedented population influx to Riyadh, the sub-branches of Wadi, the small branches from Hanifa valley, have been dissected, cut out like a piece of cake, and flattened by Doxiadis’ grid as Riyadh expands since 1972. This paper recalls HIMA, the traditional land management system in the Arabian Peninsula that limited human intervention and secured a portion of land. It had been a sustainable management system to sustain the lives of tribes placed in critically harsh environments with respect to limits. As rapid modernization occurred in the region, HIMA ended in the 1950s as the way of tribal living. This paper proposes HIMA for urban waterways to reverse the level of evaporative cooling to support the ecology of Wadi Hanifa. It would find a way for local communities to balance between the desire for human habitation and the respect of the land in hot and arid climate zone of dryland which is valued and urged to be protected by UNCCD, United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification, and SDG 15: Life on Land, as it has sustained all living creatures beyond our memory.