Eight illegally uprooted centennial olive trees seized

AMMAN — Authorities have seized eight uprooted centennial olive trees, which were loaded on two trucks, the Jordan News Agency, Petra, reported.

The Royal Department for Environment Protection and Tourism’s personnel, in cooperation with Balqa Tourism Department and Balqa Agriculture Office, have stopped the vehicles that were transporting the centennial olive trees, which are among Jordan’s rare and endangered  trees.

The centennial olive trees are locally referred to as “Roman olive trees”, because some of them are over 1,500 years old. Roman olive trees are usually sold for hefty amounts of money to hotels, resorts or companies for landscaping purposes. 

Agriculture Ministry’s law prohibits the uprooting of centennial fruit trees, which can only be allowed by obtaining official approval from the ministry. 

The eight trees were seized and confiscated in one of the ministry’s forest nurseries, while the violators were referred for legal action,  Petra reported.

Under environmental regulations, those who cut down forest trees without a licence face a three-month prison term, a JD100 fine for each tree chopped down from state-owned land and a JD50 fine for each one from private land. In addition, their equipment is confiscated.

The area of land registered as forests amounted to 1.3 million dunums at the end of 2018, approximately 1.5 per cent of the total area of Jordan.