Introducing Menaqua’s team of experts on land restoration in Jordan

Land Restoration in Jordan

Jordan has been facing difficulties from the scarcity of water resources; almost 90% of the land area of Jordan receives less than 200 mm of rainfall annually. This is reflected in poor structural stability of the soil as well as a subsequent vulnerability to excessive erosion followed by shallow rainstorm events.

The high cost of irrigation networks and poor survival rate of forestation and planting of fruit trees encourage researchers and companies to introduce new agricultural techniques like the cocoon technology. Cocoon technology requires minimum irrigation; which increase the efficiency of water usage in Jordan and enhance the land productivity.

As the designated distributor of LLC’s Cocoon technology in the MENA region, Menaqua uses The Cocoon Planting System as one of their tools in consulting clients. In Jordan, we started this spring with undertaking scientific testing of the cocoon technology in locations of Maisarah, Faisal station and Al-Faisalaih. Menaqua’s next step is to engage a broader base of stakeholders, scaling up activities with resulting science.

Main Partners & Core Team Members

Land Life Company (LLC)

The developer of the Cocoon technology, Land Life Company (LLC), provides standard procedures for applying and monitoring the technology for use in planting campaigns, monitoring campaigns, and training sessions. In addition, the LLC digital platform assists in the monitoring of Cocoon performance and in stakeholder engagement.

Ministry of Agriculture

The strategy and objectives of the Jordan Ministry of Agriculture intersect with the objectives of the cocoon technology in land reclamation and decrease of irrigation water consumption to increase the green area in Jordan. The Ministry is cooperating through partnership with the private sector and NGOs to raise awareness and disseminate innovative ideas of new technologies and applies it on the ground.

Mustafa Alfreahat
Representative of MENAQUA in Jordan

Mustafa oversees Menaqua’s Land restoration project with oversight from Jeroen Kosterman (Menaqua director) in direction and scope. He assists the planning and implementation of Menaqua’s Land restoration project, while providing data and summaries for later publication. He is responsible for sending the projects’ updates to the project manager.
Mahmoud Alfreihat
NCC Project Manager

Alfreihat has ample experience in tree planting and project management. He is responsible for conducting all the administrative activities related to the project, and liaises with Land Life and Menaqua partners. Alfreihat works on supporting the establishment of the trial plots and liaises with the local communities as well. He manages the planning and organization of the citizen science learning sessions. Alfreihat analyzes the projects’ results, and write a weekly report to communicate the progress in the projects.

Teamed up and ready for testing

Our first workshop in Jordan was held in November 2018 at the landmark, Amman hotel & conference center, located in Al shareef Hussein street. We exchanged information on land restoration in Jordan with a particular emphasis on restoration programs and innovative agriculture. We introduced the work of Menaqua in land restoration to the Jordanian government, the private sector, universities and other potential future stakeholders.

In our next newsletter, we will be coming back to you with the first results of the monitoring process and progress of our mission. We will introduce you to other team members and give word to one of our local field supervisors.