Agriculture Ministry to distribute firewood collected from fallen trees

AMMAN — Ministry of Agriculture’s teams collected around 130 tonnes of firewood from fallen trees in Amman during last month’s snowstorm, according to Director of the Forestry Directorate at the Ministry Khaled Qudah.

Qudah estimated that the firewood, which is currently being stored at the ministry’s stations, weighs between 100 and 130 tonnes. 

“The Ministry of Agriculture will distribute some of the firewood to families in need during winter and sell the rest at preferential prices for citizens,” he told The Jordan Times on Tuesday over the phone.

Qudah added that, according to field tours, between 3,000 and 4,000 trees fell across the Kingdom. 

“We are still running calculations, and I believe this number will decrease after the pruning operations, as some of the affected trees did not fall completely, but only branches of them fell,” he said.

Qudah noted that the ministry plants hundreds of thousands of trees annually and that there are permanent reforestation plans in regions that can sustain such projects.

The Greater Amman Municipality (GAM) stated that their groups removed 95 per cent of the trees that fell due to the recent snow.

People on social media demanded that fallen trees be removed and replanted, as citizens are calling for more trees to be planted around the Kingdom.

Twitter user Moneer Sayed encouraged GAM to plant more trees, saying on the social platform in Arabic: “We need trees not just for scenery but for the environment as well and to help with climate change. It is always better to have more greenery.”

Lama Dawood, another Twitter user, said that all the trees that have fallen down must be replaced with new and better ones which will be ready for any weather conditions. “More trees must be planted before the spring season so they would blossom,” she tweeted in English.