How Expo 2020 Dubai brought green gardens in the middle of a desert

Gulf News

Looking for plants that grow best in the UAE heat? Expo 2020 Dubai has the answers…  Read the full story here: https://bit.ly/30Rb1wP  See more videos at https://gulfnews.com/videos Read more Gulf News stories here: https://bit.ly/2HLJ2km  Subscribe to Gulf News on YouTube and watch more of our videos: https://www.youtube.com/user/GulfNewsTV  #UAEnews #Dubai #plants

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00:00One of the main targets that we have is focusing on native and adaptive plants.

00:04So for us, ensuring native and adaptive plants throughout the site

00:09not only serves a purpose in showing the beauty of the different plants,

00:13but also reduces our water intake or our water consumption.

00:19So from last year to this year we've had a savings of 11% in water consumption

00:25just because we've used specific irrigation methodologies

00:29and we use native and adaptive species.

00:32I guess the nursery acts as a support mechanism.

00:35Without the nursery, which was built way before the conceptual plans

00:41and the site was built itself, the project was built and the landscape was introduced,

00:46the nursery acts as a number of benefits.

00:51One of them being is we bring in some material such as trees

00:55and we increase the sizes of the pots so they can grow and redevelop

00:59and harden off before we bring them to the site.

01:02We have multiple greenhouses in the nursery where we look at bringing in seeds

01:07and colognes, cuttings, from local wadis, local deserts,

01:13mountainous regions regionally in the area.

01:16We bring them to the nursery, we'll germinate those seeds and we'll do trials.

01:21It's very much a testing area for us to do trials and what's successful,

01:26we'll monitor and see the performance of the growth in the nursery

01:30and whatever's successful we'll introduce to the site.

01:33The Terra Pavilion where we're sitting right now has over 100 different native species,

01:39all of which we brought in from seed and grew in the nursery.

01:42So that's a huge benefit to us and without the nursery we wouldn't be able to do any of that.

01:46So the focus on native and adaptive also has shown us that we've had an increase

01:51of different animals and wildlife and insects such as butterflies and bees

02:00that are all on the site.

02:02We also try to reduce the use of herbicides and pesticides on the site as much as possible

02:08so that we can create that ecosystem that lives in harmony with nature.

02:14One of the main goals of this is again to ensure that when our visitors come to the site

02:20they see the site as it doesn't have to be perfect but it has to be real

02:25and it has to be a good representation of what the ecosystem in this part of the world should look like.

02:35So we worked across the whole site at Expo, we have many different contractors,

02:41many different specialist consultants both locally and regionally and internationally

02:45depending on the specific project and the type of work required.

02:49We work very closely with local partners such as Dubai Municipality

02:53and again their partners and local producers in sourcing the right material

02:57and using the know-how, the knowledge and harnessing that knowledge

03:00in order for us to get a step ahead and really understand what we can grow here

03:06and obviously push the boundaries as well, push the boundaries on what's normally done locally

03:11in the market here in Dubai and try out new things and the result's been remarkable.

03:16We've had some great success in a lot of material that we've produced

03:20and we just hope that that message gets shared and goes back to the market

03:24and people start learning from these lessons and everything that we've done.

03:28One of the biggest challenges we've had is the fact that we want to show a real site

03:35and using less chemicals and less pesticides has created this thriving ecosystem.

03:41So we have an influx of wild bees for example which we relocate to the nursery when we can

03:50and some of them are still here and so there's all of these different insects that you see

03:55that we are happy to have on site, however at the same time

04:02sometimes they do cause some issues with regards to the influx

04:07and as the weather gets better, what we're trying to do is also make sure

04:12that these different insects of course are safe by relocating them to the nursery

04:19and making sure that our visitors enjoy seeing them as well.

04:23So there's this fine balance between the two.

04:32you

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