This paper outlines the Environmental Support of Nomads (ESON) Project of the Meteorology and Environmental Protection Agency of Saudi Arabia (MEPA). The Project relies on high-technology tools such as remote sensing and computer simulation.

1. The ESON Project is aimed at creating a major component of the United Nation’s Environment Programme (UNEP) Action Plan to Combat Desertification, through the development of a rational technology for the utilization of marginal resources.

2. The ESON Project hopes to demonstrate that pastoral nomadism is the only major economically-beneficial user of the vast marginal natural resources in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

3. Nomads will benefit from the project by being provided with the technical information from high-technology facilities that allow them to make better decisions for managing the grazing resources, in a way that maximizes livestock production while at the same time minimizing the risk of land degradation.

4. A key to successful development of a programme to manage the Kingdom’s marginal resources is to foster cooperation between the appropriate Government ministry, and those other agencies, concerned about the conservation of natural resources.

First published in Squires, V.R. & Sidahmed, A.E. (ed.) "Drylands. Sustainable use of rangelands into the twenty-first century." IFAD Series: Technical Reports. Rome: IFAD. Reproduced with permission.