Abu Dhabi’s tree-tagging programme is about more than the environment

The tags are part of a programme overseen by Environment Agency Abu Dhabi, which aims to track 100,000 native trees. Photo: Nick March

If you live in one of Abu Dhabi’s older neighbourhoods, where trees have existed for decades as silent bystanders to the push-and-pull of daily life, you may have seen shiny metal tags appearing on the trunks of some, announcing their arrival by shimmering in the low sunshine of the winter months. In one area of Mushrif, the tags appeared unannounced overnight. Although, given their relatively discreet nature, they may have been hiding in plain sight for days before the moment of realisation.

The tags are part of a programme overseen by Environment Agency Abu Dhabi, which aims to track 100,000 native trees across the emirate, specifically ghaf, sidr and samar species. They are also physical reminders that cities are living organisms and that nature has grown and changed in parallel with the mutable urban landscape it co-exists with.

The ghaf, which was given the status of the UAE’s “national tree” in 2008, is said to have a life span of more than a century, although some examples in West Asia have prospered for hundreds of years in the desert. Samar trees can be found in the country’s wadis and mountainous areas. Sidr trees offer a safe haven to bees. All three are bound by their hardiness and willingness to prosper on hot days and in water-scarce areas.

The tags themselves are small metal plates identifying the species of the native tree, coding it and providing a warning to those who encroach on the natural heritage of the city’s streets. The legal penalty for harming a protected tree is Dh10,000, about $2,700.

Forensic investigators from Northumbria Police examine the felled Sycamore Gap tree, on Hadrian's Wall in northern England. PA

For trees that stand on urban verges, or in the gaps between older buildings, they pose a classic question at the heart of the intersection between preservation and change

For those who see that tariff as too high, there are many examples of how much communities can be hurt by violence against nature and helped by its preservation. Consider the 2023 Sycamore Gap tree felling in England, for instance, which made headlines and united communities in grief and anger against such a wilful act of vandalism. We’ve also witnessed how many people drew comfort and joy from the preservation and protection of a 70-year-old ghaf tree in its original place when construction got under way on the Expo 2020 site in Dubai.

Some of Abu Dhabi’s newly tagged trees might be described as more prosaic examples of those species, but maybe the ordinariness of a few of the sample size is also the point.

It takes hundreds of trees to make a forest, some small and some large. A few of that cluster may be arrestingly beautiful, others provide only a few more pixels in the millions that make up our personal vistas. But all are worth saving, preserving and nurturing.

If the tags promote further inquiry or stimulate deeper engagement with the unnoticed constant facets of daily life, then they will have more than fulfilled their purpose. They also signal community, heritage and a significant commitment to preserving traditions.

For those trees that stand on urban verges, or in the gaps between older buildings, they pose a classic question at the heart of the intersection between preservation and change. Tree surgeons will tell you that prudent maintenance is an important part of long and healthy lives. The now untouchable group of trees of the emirate will have to be managed in the medium and longer term, but that will be a task for the experts, rather than the informal squads of enterprising amateurs, who in the past may sometimes have been partial to injudicious intervention.

It is surely no coincidence that the broader project completes the circle from planting to preservation. The past few years have seen, among others, sidr tree planting programmes in Dubai, samar sapling planting schemes in Ras Al Khaimah and, this month, another ghaf tree planting project in Abu Dhabi. The emirate’s municipality said it planted more than 8,000 ghaf trees last year.

The tree tags arrived in my neighbourhood in the week when President Sheikh Mohamed declared 2025 to be the Year of Community, asking all citizens and residents, “all those who call the UAE home”, to help improve their communities. “Hand in hand, we will work together to strengthen social bonds, foster shared responsibility and unlock potential for inclusive and sustainable growth,” he wrote earlier this week.

The initiative is the latest in a lineage that has included the Years of Zayed, Sustainability, Tolerance, Innovation and Reading, as well as preparations for the country’s 50th anniversary in 2021.

It’s easy to form linkages between the Year of Community and neighbourhood-based tree tagging. My instant reaction to the tags was to be charmed and feel connected to something greater. The tags secure the futures of those trees and ensure they will be an integral part of the communities in which they grow for decades to come.