Conservationists in Saudi Arabia have found an unexpected ally in the kingdom's renewable energy buildout: a sprawling solar plant that has doubled as a breeding sanctuary for a vulnerable native antelope.
The 250-megawatt installation sits near the Red Sea coastline inside a nature reserve spanning 24,500 square miles. It exists primarily to power Amaala, a tourist resort that runs entirely on renewable energy, but the 1,200 acres of wildlife-proof fencing enclosing its rows of panels have given 38 Arabian sand gazelles room to feed, reproduce, and roam without the threat of predators.
The species is a priority for wildlife managers. Although Arabian sand gazelles are a familiar sight in zoos worldwide, researchers estimate that merely 3,000 remain across the wilds of the Arabian Peninsula and Turkiye.
The goal is for the current group of several dozen animals to expand past 500 individuals, which would then seed a robust population throughout the wider reserve.
"Our rewilding goal is to build self-sustaining wildlife populations that can survive in the wild without ongoing human intervention," Andrew Zaloumis, the reserve's director, told the Good News Network.
Zaloumis told the Good News Network that the partnership speeds up that mission and establishes a replicable model he described as a "double-green" framework with global scalability, which the reserve calls "ReWildingVoltaics."
The gazelles are not the only newcomers. Mountain gazelles and Arabian hares were also released into the solar park last October, according to the Good News Network. This May, after it became evident the animals were adapting to their surroundings, males were introduced with the aim of building a self-perpetuating population.
Pairing energy production with animal husbandry is not a new concept. The Good News Network has previously documented the advantages of grazing sheep and cultivating crops in and around solar arrays, and several of those dynamics carry over to gazelle breeding. The panels provide readily available shade that measures between 8 and 18 degrees cooler than conditions under the open Arabian sun.
The Saudi Gazette reported that the initiative advances the Saudi Green Initiative's targets of protecting 30% of the kingdom's land and sea and drawing 50% of its electricity from renewable sources by 2030.
