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Foundation of Nature Reserves
By the 1960s, the decline of natural conditions in Jordan
provoked a realization that the country was in the midst of an
environmental catastrophe. In response, the Royal Jordanian
Hunting and Shooting Club, founded in the 1930s as a typically
British private hunting club with restricted membership,
reorganized itself as the Royal Society for the Conservation of
Nature (RSCN) and began a career that would make it the leading
advocate for, and administrator of, Jordan’s nature reserves.
In 1963, its patron, King Hussein, invited
an Englishman, Guy Mountfort, to conduct a survey of Jordan’s
biological resources. Mountfort, a WW II hero, a successful
and wealthy businessman, and a founder of the World Wildlife
Fund, proposed that Jordan create five national parks that
would have reserved 8.5% of the country (Mountfort 1965,
1974). His highest priority was the Azraq, a 12,000 sq. km
internal drainage basin and wetland important and a link on
the flyways between Eurasia and Africa. Here he proposed a
4000 sq. km national park consisting of oasis, wetland, qa,
and limestone and basalt desert devoted to tourism,
conservation, research, and education.
In 1965, King Hussein proclaimed his intent
to declare Azraq National Park, and work began on the Azraq
Biological Station. Then Jordan was plunged into the 1967
Arab-Israeli War which stopped creation of Azraq National Park
and closed the biological station. Nonetheless, Bryan Nelson,
its director, was able to complete a beautiful and
authoritative book on the Azraq Oasis (Nelson, 1974).
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