Along the paths of Education City’s Oxygen Park lays the Quranic Botanic Gardens (QBG), home to a generous display of plants and vegetation mentioned in the Holy Quran and those native to Qatar. Operating since September 2008, the Garden currently holds sixty plant species, twenty of which are referenced from the Holy Quran (Elgharib and Saleh 59). This number is expected to increase to include plants mentioned in the Hadith and Sunnah of the Prophet Muhammad.

Botanic Gardens Conservation International (par. 4) identifies five primary functions of the QBG:

1. The Garden has a vital role in the environment since it seeks to protect the variety of plants gathered from all over the world from any potential risks they might face.
2. The Garden’s year-round educational activities aim to instil a sense of civic duty and reverence for the natural world, highlight the importance of tree-planting, and aid in protecting Qatar’s flora and fauna.
3. The Garden serves a scientific function by providing a place to study the plants from horticulture, conservation, biotechnology, medicine, and socioeconomics perspectives.
4. QBG aims to play a cultural role by reviving long-lost customs. The Garden highlights traditional plant usage, the value of plants in human society, and the long-term viability of various plant-based practices.
5. The QBG serves as a recreational hub for locals and visitors alike, intending to become a primary destination for families to spend quality time together and gain knowledge through participation in various events.

An unprecedented pace of plant diversity loss is currently occurring, which harms ecosystems. Due to several destructive practices, such as overharvesting and overexploitation, environmental pollution, destructive agricultural and forestry practices, urbanisation, global climate change, land-use changes, exotic invasive species, and others, about one-third of the world’s vascular plant species are in danger of going extinct (Chen and Sun 184). As Heywood (309) explains, it is therefore essential to develop integrated conservation strategies like the QBG that focus their resources on plant research and preservation and educate the public about the diversity of plant species found worldwide.

Botanical gardens, like the QBG, have a unique role in promoting public awareness of climate change and environmental conservation. They offer resources such as a variety of plant species flourishing in their native habitats, historical records, and knowledgeable personnel, and they draw a lot of volunteers and tourists (Cannon and Kua 334). However, is engaging the public in sustainability through interactive instruction in a botanical garden a useful educational model? Additionally, it is now commonly acknowledged that humans have evolved into a geomorphic force altering all of Earth’s biogeochemical processes at a biospheric scale. Does the word “nature” continue to have a semantic significance as a primary signifier in both expert and lay discourse if this is the case for the QBG? Why do many of the world’s top academic institutions and educators insist that comprehending earth systems and cutting-edge technologies, as well as the cultural aspects of society like the religious and philosophical traditions that brought us to this point in history, will be necessary to address the environmental and social challenges we face in the future? Lastly, some experts contend that we are currently experiencing a fresh round of mass extinction brought on by human activity, endangering the planet’s biological diversity and causing various ecological disasters. How can research on non-human species in places like the QBG influence how people react to these potential dangers?