A hima traditional ecological knowledge perspective of the sustainability goals in AlUla’s journey through time masterplan

Abstract

Saudi Arabia’s ‘Vision 2030’ proposes a more diversified society and a less oil-dominated economy, enabled by several ambitious best-practice sustainability urbanisation projects, one of which is the ‘Journey Through Time’ Masterplan for the urban region of AlUla in the Kingdom’s Hegra Valley. The Masterplan proposes an expansion and intensification of existing towns, economically supported by international tourism focused on the Hegra UNESCO World Heritage Site. It thereby couples tangible cultural heritage management with sustainable urban development. Yet the AlUla Masterplan has shown little evidence of engaging with the intangible heritage of traditional ecological knowledge and practices, known in Arabic as hima, which have been intrinsically connected to the ancient heritage fabric for millennia. Based on interviews with community elders and traditional knowledge-holders, site observations of traditional practices and techniques, and a review of government documents and websites, this paper demonstrates that consideration of local hima practices has the potential to integrate urban sustainability transitions together with the preservation of tangible and intangible cultural heritage. It suggests that practices embedded in local hima, like water-use and land-use arrangements, offer sustainable resource management and disaster mitigation options for the AlUla scheme; and that hima’s intrinsic social dimension, and its culture of intergenerational transmission, offers opportunities to connect heritage, community and the regional environment. Our research concludes with the benefits of integrating hima traditional ecological knowledge with cultural heritage preservation and urban modernisation, offering an approach to sustainable transformations of the region’s cities, communities and sometimes fragile resources.