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The native plant biodiversity of the Arabian Peninsula, which comprises over 3500, species I, is being rapidly depleted. Over 90% of the total land area now suffers from some form of desertification, and 44% is severely or very severely degraded. The primary cause is overgrazing, particularly by the large population of small ruminants. Increasing amounts of supplementary feed in the form of Rhodes-grass (Chloris gayana) and alfalfa (Medicago sativa) is being produced to accommodate the shortfall from the rangeland. These species consume huge volumes of water, (up to 48,000 m(3)/ha/yr). Therefore groundwater reserves have fallen dramatically and in some cases have caused the salinity levels to rise. Indigenous grasses are however adapted to the local climatic conditions and have been shown to respond dramatically to very small amounts of irrigation. There is, an urgent need to collect and conserve these grasses and evaluate their potential as fodder crops under systems using minimal irrigation and, water of relatively high salt content.

The National Agricultural Research Systems (NARS), universities and research departments of the municipalities of the Arabian Peninsula, working with the International. Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas (ICARDA), have taken steps to address the resulting degradation in the Arabian Peninsula, through the use of indigenous forages. The paper focuses on that part of the research that has been done specifically in the United Arab Emirates and describes systematically a holistic approach that was begun in 1997 to address the above problems.