Back from Extinction in the Wild: Restoring the Arabian Oryx (Oryx leucoryx) across its historical range in Saudi Arabia

The Arabian oryx became extinct in the wild in 1972 after decades of overhunting and habitat destruction. Its recovery required a long-term, multidimensional approach rather than a one-off, single release programme. Key measures included conservation-breeding; legal protection and enforcement; effective management of protected sites; phased reintroductions; and post-release monitoring. In Saudi Arabia reintroductions began in 1989 starting with Imam Saud Bin Abdul Aziz Reserve (Mahazat as Sayd PA) followed by Uruq Bani Marid in 1995 and several other Reserves later on. Recent estimates indicate that around 3,064 Arabian oryx live under wild and lightly managed conditions across 11 sites forming a coordinated network of populations across its historical range in Saudi Arabia, with the population showing an increasing trend (NCW 2026).This recovery demonstrates that extinction in the wild can be reversed when conservation-breeding, translocation and coordination amongst partners are integrated and sustained over the long-term.

Visit page

Related content

Participatory Soum Level Pasture Co-Management in Mongolia

In Mongolia’s rural administrative system, an aimag is a province, a soum is its district, and a bagh is the smallest unit within a soum, covering households and herder communities. Across 13 soums in Uvurkhangai, Dornogovi, Sukhbaatar and Tuv aimags, open grazing, weak coordination and limited land-use information contributed to pasture degradation. The Sustainable Land Management for Combating Desertification Project formed herder groups and co-management committees, introducing participatory planning, GIS mapping, rotational grazing, field monitoring and locally managed funds. Herders submitted pasture-use proposals at bagh meetings and helped implement annual soum plans. Seasonal grazing restrictions covered over 900,000 ha, while three plots in each target soum compared grazed and ungrazed vegetation. It established 109 herder groups, linked community knowledge with local government decisions, and created a replicable model for restoring and sustainably managing dry rangelands while supporting pastoral livelihoods.

Gender-Responsive Capacity Building and Mentoring for Climate-Resilient, Value-Added Livelihoods in Mongolia

Developed through a United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) climate-adaptation project, this solution strengthens livelihoods for women, young herders and people with disabilities in Khovd and Zavkhan Provinces. It combines online instruction, two-day hands-on training, gender sessions, manuals, videos and post-training mentoring. Participants learn to sew standard covers for Mongolian gers (round dwellings) and make value-added leather and rawhide products from local livestock materials. The solution responds to limited skills, equipment, finance and market access while supporting traditional knowledge and income diversification. Two classroom tracks recorded 96 participations. After two months, 25 sewing trainees had made ger covers, seven had sold them and 11 reported earning income. In leathercraft, 23 were applying skills, 14 had made products, five had completed orders and two reported earning income. Follow-up mentoring helped solve production problems and improve confidence.

Blending Local Finance and Community Stewardship to Restore Khovd’s Riparian Forests, Mongolia

Riparian forests woody vegetation along rivers and streams in Khovd Province have been degraded by grazing pressure, wood cutting, climate change and weak natural regeneration. From 2022 to 2025, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP)-supported ADAPT project and local governments restored about 700 hectares across 13 districts (soums) and planted more than 560,000 trees. The solution paired restoration and community participation with a sustainable financing model: 70% of the Mongolian tugrik (MNT) 7 billion investment came from ADAPT and 30% from local budgets. UNDP’s Biodiversity Finance Initiative (BIOFIN) helped local authorities improve the planning, collection and allocation of Natural Resource Use Fee revenues so restoration could continue beyond external project funding. The approach strengthens riverbanks, biodiversity, local governance and shared responsibility. Its blend of local revenue, international co-financing and multi-stakeholder delivery can be adapted by other Mongolian provinces.

Using KAP and Livelihood Evidence to Guide Adaptive SLM and Landscape Restoration in Mongolia

The ENSURE Project combined Knowledge, Attitudes and Practices (KAP) assessments with household livelihood surveys to strengthen evidence-based SLM and landscape restoration in four Mongolian aimags. A 2019 baseline and 2022 follow-up assessed environmental knowledge, conservation practices, training participation, income and livelihood conditions; the 2022 livelihood assessment covered 376 households. Results refined awareness activities, capacity development, livelihood support and natural-resource management. By 2022, the combined knowledge score had risen from 3.09% to 7.0%, conservation practices by 12.8 percentage points, and training participation 2.7-fold. The approach complements biophysical land-degradation-neutrality monitoring by explaining social and livelihood factors that influence land-use decisions. It shows how repeated socio-economic evidence can support adaptive management, although surveys do not themselves measure ecological restoration.

Promoting large-scale restoration of degraded forest landscape in Yoko and Nanga-Eboko through assisted natural regeneration

Cameroon, home to nearly 20 million hectares of forest, is increasingly affected by forest and land degradation driven by bushfires, uncontrolled grazing, and unsustainable agricultural practices. To address these challenges, the global project Forests4Future, implemented by GIZ (Deutsche Gesellschaft für internationale Zusammenarbeit) in partnership with local councils and MINEPDED (Ministry of Environment, Nature Protection and Sustainable Development), introduced Assisted Natural Regeneration (ANR) in the Yoko and Nanga-Eboko landscapes. ANR is a low-cost, nature-based restoration approach that supports the natural recovery of degraded ecosystems through targeted human interventions rather than tree planting. The approach combines community sensitization, participatory site identification and mapping, site protection, and collaborative management agreements with local communities.

Scaling Nature-based Solutions through Local Climate Finance in Lesotho’s Catchments

Lesotho is a small, landlocked mountain kingdom entirely surrounded by South Africa. More than 80% of its land lies above 1,800 metres, making it the ‘Water Tower’ of Southern Africa and a vital source of freshwater for the region. Despite this, Lesotho’s water resources are under threat from soil erosion, overgrazing, and climate change. ReNOKA (“We are a river”) is Lesotho’s national programme and citizen movement for addressing these challenges and sustainably managing the country’s water and land resources. It supports local communities in restoring degraded catchments through a pioneering climate finance mechanism. The approach empowers community councils to implement their own nature-based solutions, including stone bunds, wetland fencing, and tree planting. These actions reduce erosion, improve water retention, and restored vegetation across degraded landscapes.

Embedded in national systems, ReNOKA connects policy, people, and finance — securing Lesotho’s water and land resources for future generations.

Flooded Forest Rehabilitation in the Tonle Sap of Cambodia

Cambodia’s Tonle Sap Lake, a globally important fishery and carbon store, is rapidly losing flooded forests to deforestation, wildfire, and invasive species. Since 2010, Conservation International has worked with Community Fisheries to restore these habitats through nursery planting, direct seeding, and assisted natural regeneration. The work has revived 10 gallery forest species, including six globally threatened species, while supporting biodiversity such as the endangered hairy-nosed otter and the return of the fishing cat after more than a decade without confirmed records in the area. The program also strengthens community stewardship, stores carbon, and creates income opportunities for marginalized communities.

Continued support is needed because communities face limited experience, resources, and large-scale degradation. CI works with them to improve restoration techniques, study tree ecology, and identify effective ways to recover this unique ecosystem before degraded areas are overtaken by invasive shrubs and weeds.

Snake Island National Coastal and Marine Center for Research: A Model for Coral Reef Recovery

In 2011, Snake Island (Kalumpang Island) was declared a National Coastal and Marine Center for Research (NCMCR) through DENR Administrative Order (DAO) No. 2011-12 issued on November 3, 2011. The policy established the island as a model site for sustainable coastal and marine management and prohibited tourism and fishing activities. It also directed DENR bureaus and field offices to formulate the island’s operational plan and research agenda.

An initial resource inventory in 2016 recorded a mean hard coral cover (HCC) of 46.25%. However, a massive coral bleaching event later reduced HCC to 3.69%. In response, interagency biannual assessments were instituted to document recovery trends and identify disturbance indicators. The assessments integrated benthic surveys, fish visual censuses and seagrass and mangrove assessments in post-bleaching recovery surveys. With limited pressure from tourism and fishing, coral recovery was observed, with a nearly five-fold increase in HCC (16.89%) 10 years after the bleaching event.

2025

Guidance and toolkit for impact assessments in a World Heritage context (Chinese version)

As the World Heritage Convention celebrates its 50th anniversary in 2022, over 1100 sites around the world are recognized as World Heritage – places that are so valuable to humanity that there conservation has been deemed our collective responsibility. Yet many of these exceptional places face increasing pressure from diverse types of development projects within and around the sites. Assessing the impacts of such projects is essential to both prevent damage to World Heritage and identify sustainable options. This Guidance and toolkit explains the process for achieving these goals. Offering practical tips and tools including checklists and a glossary, it provides a framework for conducting impact assessments for cultural and natural heritage sites.

Testing Before Scaling: Mongolia's Living Laboratory for Dryland Restoration

The Elsentasarkhai living laboratory is a permanent platform for testing dryland restoration solutions before wider investment and replication. Established in 2011 on 45 hectares at Mongolia’s dry steppe-desert steppe transition, it combines field research, multi-year monitoring, demonstration, training and knowledge exchange. Trials address drought, strong winds, shifting sand and limited water through 1 x 1 m straw checkerboards, revegetation, windbreak forest belts and cultivation of 21 rare and endangered native tree and shrub species. A 10-hectare moving-sand trial stabilized sand for three to four years when barriers were combined with revegetation. Managed by the Institute of Geography and Geoecology, the station has continued beyond the original UNDP-supported project, hosted 40+ research activities, including five international collaborations, and provided learning for researchers, students, herders and officials. Its lesson is simple: test locally, monitor over time, learn openly and scale only what works.

Regenerating Mongolia's Saxaul Forests through Livestock Exclosures and Locally Led Monitoring

Mongolia’s saxaul (Haloxylon ammodendron) forests stabilize Gobi soils, reduce sand movement, store carbon and support biodiversity, yet browsing and trampling can suppress seedlings. Since 2020, the GEF-funded ENSURE project, implemented by the Government of Mongolia with UNDP support, has combined site-targeted livestock exclosures with paired fenced-unfenced monitoring and practical training for local officers and rangers. The 2023 assessment covered eight fenced and eight comparison plots in four soums; it measured tree density, regeneration, vegetation, biomass, carbon and CO2 storage. Some protected sites showed substantially more young saxaul, while others showed limited differences, proving that fencing must be targeted and evaluated rather than counted as restoration by area alone. By 2024, community-driven regeneration measures covered more than 400 ha, including a 300-ha exclosure in Shinejinst. The approach links natural regeneration, local stewardship and evidence-based scaling for resilient dryland landscapes.

Tools to Connect People with Protected Areas: Community-Led Advisory Boards

Yaghnob National Nature Park was established in a remote mountainous region home to the Yaghnobi people, a community with ancestral ties to the area. The park creation shifted local land governance. Previously, pasture use was shaped by traditional ownership rights, long-term arrangements, and locally negotiated community practices.

Subsequently, park authorities control and allocate grazing areas through rentals, upending access for local, outside, and transiting herders. These changes fuel friction over access, trust, and decision-making. Community members are concerned grazing allocations lack environmental assessments or equitable access, while park staff must implement ambitious management plans in difficult terrain with limited experience.

In response, TNF supports a community-led advisory board. This voluntary, collaborative body connects locals, pastoralists, park staff, government authorities, and scientists to improve communication, strengthen coordination, resolve conflicts, and share conservation responsibilities.