Doha, February 24 (QNA) - The Ministry of Municipality said that qualitative leaps have been achieved in the number of public parks and green spaces in the State of Qatar, stressing the importance attached to increasing the area of green space in various regions of the country through the establishment and development of public parks and gardens, planting trees, and launching national initiatives such as the initiative to plant one million trees and the initiative to plant ten million trees.

In a statement on the occasion of the Qatar International Agricultural Exhibition 2024, the Ministry explained that the goal of these initiatives is to improve the quality of life in cities, which contributed to all eight Qatari cities obtaining the title of healthy city from the World Health Organization as well as seven Qatari cities joining the UNESCO Global Network of Learning Cities.

The Ministry revealed several tree planting initiatives in the State of Qatar, as the million trees initiative achieved during the period (2019/2022) the planting of one million tree seedlings, noting that the ten million trees initiative (2023/2030) has completed the planting of 320,000 tree seedlings so far.

Regarding the number of public parks, squares and the Corniche, the number of parks reached 113 parks in 2019, increasing to 144 parks in 2023, bringing an increase in the number of public parks to 27 percent. In addition, 15 new parks were launched in 2024.

As for the development of green spaces in the country, their percentage reached about 4.4 km2 in 2019, rising to 16.8 km2 in 2023, bringing the total green spaces, in cooperation with all the country’s authorities, to 43 km2.

Regarding the per capita share of green space, it was as follows: (1.64 m2 in 2019, and 5.8 m2 in 2023), bringing the per capita share, in cooperation with other bodies, to: 14.7 m2.

The rate of increase in the use of treated water to irrigate green spaces was 36 percent in 2019 and 75 percent in 2023, an increasing rate of 39 percent.

The number of production and distribution of various agricultural seedlings was as follows: In 2019: 1,570,320 seedlings were produced and 782,834 seedlings were distributed. In 2023, the number of seedlings produced reached 2,100,823 seedlings and 1,465,459 seedlings were distributed, bringing the rate of increase in production to 34 percent and the rate of increase in distribution to 87 percent. (QNA)