FoEME to Hold Conference on Shared Mountain Aquifer

Friends of the Earth Middle East (FoEME) is a longtime advocate of sustainability and environmental peacebuilding in the region.  Fresh off the pages of Time Magazine, where FoEME’s directors were recently named Heroes of the Environment 2008, FoEME is hosting a conference next week as part of the Pro-Aquifer project.

Over the past two years, the Pro-Aquifer team has worked with pilot municipalities in both Israel and the Palestinian Authorities to assess threats to the shared Mountain Aquifer and develop policy guidelines for pollution prevention.  From these initial case studies in Umm el Fahem on the Israeli side (seen above) and Tulkarm on the Palestinian side, FoEME developed general policy guidelines for all communities in the Mountain Aquifer recharge area.

These guidelines will be presented at the conference, which is a “kick-off” to a three-day course discussing the issues and policy recommendations that emerged from the Pro-Aquifer Project.  The course will include presentations from representatives of both the Israeli and Palestinian Water Authorities, as well as members of non-governmental organizations and academic institutions.

Pro-Aquifer Professional Conference and Course 4 - Use of Policy Guidelines: Developing Municipal Policy to Protect Ground Water will be held November 3-5, 2008 at the Notre Dame Center in Jerusalem.  For more information, including the conference agenda, please visit FoEME’s website.

Also, for more about FoEME, read the following Prophecies: Jordanians, Israelis and Palestinians Collaborate to Save the Jordan River; Neighbors’ Paths: Eco-Tourism AND Eco-Peace!; Controversial Red-Dead Sea Canal on Hold – But why?

Image Credit: noanoanoa