Comments on: Boston Globe: Who wins and loses from wildland conservation?

By: Karin Kloosterman

Karin Kloosterman — Thu, 13 Jan 2011 12:54:10 +0000

In reply to Nymphaea Alba. NA: You sound a bit paranoid to me. What the Israeli government does want is the stoppage of unregulated building - something that any country in the West would enforce, whether you live in Tel Aviv, in the desert, or in Toronto. My family lives in a small town in Ontario. They can't put up a porch without a building permit. So, please: Relax.

By: Nymphaea Alba

Nymphaea Alba — Thu, 13 Jan 2011 06:29:45 +0000

You might also want to look at the situation in Wadi Qelt, once a popular hiking and picnic destination for Palestinians in the West Bank. Now it’s been declared a nature reserve by the Israeli administration, so that they can throw out Bedouins who’ve lived there for decades or even centuries – some of them formerly employed to keep the place tidy. The local settlements, which are building in the desert and disturbing the ecosystems there, have unilaterally declared that the reserve is closed from 6pm, which basically means closed to non-settlers – if you go up side-roads you can see settlement boys hiking all over the hills, but if a Gentile or a Palestinian go near the place they get slung off by armed settlement guards (I know; it happened to me). It seems like the main thing that Israeli ‘nature reserves’ want to do is keep Arabs off as much land as possible.

By: michelle4jerusalem

michelle4jerusalem — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 20:53:50 +0000

Had you gotten a second quote from an employee at the Jewish National Fund, the organization that plants the trees in Israel, I’d have been more impressed with your article. I’ve met Beduin and Arab Israeli JNF forest rangers and their communities see the arrival of work and forests at their village borders as double blessings – go speak to the Beduins at Yattir Forest for example. OR ask the good folks at Bimkom what the Palestinians of Jabbal Mukabber think about JNF’s “Peace Forest” planted on the border of their village – again – double blessing! Bimkom is a great organization, but this article is really sloppy work. You also claim that “Israeli nature advocates are proud of their efforts” – yeah, we’re proud, but we’re also ashamed at how far backwards Israel is in many environmental respects – like how the country’s systems of rivers and streams were openly polluted for 60 years while the country was built, though we are also ironically so proud of how fast Israel was developed. If you wanted to make an absurd blanket statement like that about a group of serious thinkers and doers, you should have sourced a quote to back it up, because it looks like a)either you only know one single Israeli environmentalist AND he/she’s a new immigrant or b)again you did not do your homework and call SPNI, established in the 1950s, and ask their Environmental Protection Division if they’re merely proud as you claim, or deeply concerned about the environmental situation in Israel today. Show an interest in journalism, get the other side and then I might read more of your blogs.

By: Karin Kloosterman

Karin Kloosterman — Thu, 07 May 2009 19:13:23 +0000

Canada has built nationally and provincially preserved sites around people, indigenous and those who’d been settled in the land when it was declared a protected site. These people do act as stewards to the land, but sometimes just use their special status to throw reckless bush parties . . . it’s a tough call.