An absurd situation where one ministry approves the marine reserve and and another gives a license for oil drilling. Nothing new for Israel.
If Greenpeace has won the battle against Zara and its use of toxic chemicals, this new potential environmental threat should have the Greenpeace Mediterranean headquarters on full alert: the Israeli government eager to become energy independent has agreed that a drilling company can start survey drilling off the Israeli coast in an area designated to be a marine reserve. While Israel’s part of the Mediterranean Sea has proven to have a bounty of natural gas reserves – ones that could make it energy independent for 100 years (according to reports I’ve read), prospectors are now drilling deeper, because where’s there’s gas, there is often oil. But the greens in Israel aren’t pleased with this new development. And the government is giving its own mixed message.
The area in question is some 19 kilometers, about 15 miles off the coast of Herzylia. Environmentalists like our friends at Zalul (an NGO whose name means clear) are against drilling at this proposed marine reserve. They are concerned about oil spillage into the sea into the reserve that will be part of a network of four others along the Israeli coast, and state that no emergency clean up plans have been put into action.
The situation is absurd, Haaretz reports. On one hand the State’s Nature and Parks Authority promotes the reserve while the Interior Ministry approves drilling.
The company that will do the proposed drilling at the site called Gabriela hopes to locate a commercially viable oil field. It will be one of 50 drillings in search for oil that Israel has approved since 1969.
::Haaretz (subscription required, free); image of oil drilling from Shutterstock
Author: Karin Kloosterman
Karin Kloosterman is an award-winning journalist and publisher that founded Green Prophet to unite a prosperous Middle East. She shows through her work that positive, inspiring dialogue creates action that impacts people, business and planet. She has published in thought-leading newspapers and magazines globally, owns an IoT tech chip patent, and is part of teams that build world-changing products to make agriculture and our planet more sustainable. Reach out directly to [email protected]
Do you know how many Israelis live below the poverty line? Do you have any idea how hard it is for young families to make ends meet? Look at the schools, at the hospitals and compare them to those institutions in Austria, Germany.. Soldiers finishing the army have to pay for their university course, probably you don’t concern yourself with such mundane issues, in my experience, the greenis are usually wealthy enough not to worry about the reality of life. How dare you to be trying stopping Israelis from benefiting from oil discovery, are you payed by the house of Saud? If you think those are not important issues, think about a game change- Israel as a major exporter of oil will have to be spoken completely different than now, they wont dare lecture the Jews again, and let them try to boycott Israel’s oil! LOL!
From my understanding the authority is part of the Environment Ministry. It seems like some coordination is badly needed by Israeli policy makers and legislators.
I don’t think I would call the Nature and Parks Authority a “Ministry”. They are a non-profit heavily funded by the government. They can say whatever they want however, they have no say in the Knesset legislation.