We love the creative eco design coming out of Tel Aviv. Israel faces nationwide challenges of mismanaged waste and insufficient recycling infrastructure, but from the deserts of Morocco to the streets of Tel Aviv, artists like Yotam Shifroni and Gidi Gilam are seeking solutions through creativity. Around four months ago, Shifroni and Gilam opened Studio Sfog in Tel Aviv. Sfog means “sponge” […]
Israeli street artist Nitzan Mintz writes her poems on the streets of Tel Aviv, using disregarded materials she collects from dumpsters and public spaces. “I use only recycled materials in my art,” she said.
In Israel and well all over the western east, avocado season has arrived. Plump, green avocados are grown from the north of Israel down to Jaffa in the center, all the way to agricultural communities in the southern Negev, such as Neot Semadar. It is both a local favorite and a major national export. In 2010 […]
Today there are a dizzying variety of wildflowers blooming across Israel, welcoming the months of spring. Fifty years ago some of these plant species were on the verge of extinction. With the help of the Society for the Protection of Nature in Israel and the Nature Reserves Authority, the 1965 campaign to publicize the law […]
On Thursday, Dec. 20, Tzipi Livni’s new party, The Movement, stated that environmental reforms will be key components of their platform in the January 2013 Israeli elections. They propose passing a Basic Law for environmental protection, and a long-term blueprint for the Israeli energy market. Livni presented The Movement’s environmental agenda together with Green […]
Last week was the annual ‘Made in Palestine 2012’ fair showcasing local Palestinian innovations. Now in its seventh year, the fair was co-sponsored by the Swedish NGO Diakonia and by Al Nayzak, a Palestinian organization. There were two exhibitions, one in the West Bank, at the Ramallah Cultural Palace exhibition hall, and one in the […]
Swedish retail company H&M recently announced an upcoming clothes recycling venture, starting in February 2013. The fashion recycling campaign will span 48 nations, including the company’s Israeli franchises. This will make H&M the first chain to execute a global textile-recycling venture. H&M is expected to choose two of its Israeli branches to lead the pilot program.
Lebanon celebrated its Arbor Day on December 7. Activists, students and environmentalists gathered in open spaces to plant trees. Recent years have seen growing grassroots and government efforts to preserve Lebanon’s famed cedar forests, but there has been scant attention paid to rare juniper trees. There is currently no law to protect the vanishing Lebanese […]
A back-to-the-land movement is blossoming in the Palestinian Authority, the United Nation’s newest nonmember observer state. “The Palestinian future is in the land.” Farmer Khader Khader said, standing in his organic olive grove in the northern West Bank village of Nus Jubail. Many Palestinian farmers are switching to organic farming methods, and selling their oil to […]
Investing in African Agriculture This past April, MASHAV, Israel’s agency for international development cooperation, signed a memorandum of understanding with the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). The memorandum is aimed at addressing food security through partnerships with farmers in Uganda, Tanzania, Ethiopia and Rwanda. Israel will contribute expertise in irrigation, water technologies, agricultural […]
Israel now has relations with 44 African nations, more than at any time in the country’s history. “This is the dawning of a new era in relations between Israel and African states,” according to Lynn Schler, director of the Africa Centre at Ben-Gurion University. During summer 2012, a vast array of high-profile African leaders visited Israel, […]
There are still a few Iranian Asiatic cheetahs in the wild, but they too are on the brink of disappearing. Global cheetah populations have plummeted over the past century, from an estimated 100,000 cheetahs in 1900 to fewer than 10,000 today. And once upon a time, cheetahs roamed the deserts of Iran. But international scientific surveys recently […]
Iraq meets Israel in Tel Aviv at this new sabich restaurant. Givatayim’s legendary eggplant-maker Oved Daniel, whom they call the “professor of sabich [Iraqi eggplant dish] science,” is opening up a new restaurant in Tel Aviv. Previously a gifted soccer player, today Daniel is a local food celebrity whose specialty sabich is one of Israel’s […]
This time of year marks one of Islam’s most sacred holidays, Eid al-Adha. The four-day holiday corresponds with the height of the Hajj, the pilgrimage to Mecca in Saudi Arabia, which draws two million Muslim pilgrims a year. Eid began Friday and will end Monday, the last day of the Hajj. When traveling in Palestinian […]
Israel’s Vertigo Dance Company made its Australian debut at the Brisbane Festival in September. They performed a piece titled Mana, which means “vessel of light” and comes from the Zohar, the Jewish mystical text. Mana featured eight dancers exploring the contrasts between dark and light, male and female. Both the moon and sun were powerful […]
The Bee’ah School of Environment (BSOE), an education initiative created by a United Arab Emirates-based environmental and waste management company, recently announced it is expanding its networks in the eastern and central region of Sharjah, engaging with 160,000 students in over 200 schools. The BSOE envisions an expansion of this initiative, hoping to spread throughout […]
At the end of September an interactive multi-media exhibit, Eco Future, opened at Manarat Al Saadiyat in Abu Dhabi. The family-oriented exhibit presents children and their families with the opportunity to engage with environmental issues, with an emphasis on urban planning, and to see how the decisions they make today might impact the future. In […]
Could a united Kurdistan mean a victory for the peoples’ natural resources: energy, and mighty rivers? Against the backdrop of the civil war raging in Syria, Syrian Kurds are moving towards self-rule. The Syrian government has relinquished many Kurdish communities to local control. Kurdish flags fly over former government buildings in northeastern Syria. Many new […]
Turkey is reforming its property laws according to Reuters. Among other changes, new laws will double the amount of land foreigners are allowed to buy in Turkey. Wealthy investors from Russia and the Middle East are taking a new interest in Istanbul. According to the Knight Frank Global House Price Index, Turkish property prices are […]
In the beginning of September, Darb 1718, an art and culture organization in Cairo, hosted a festival to promote recycling in Egypt. It featured a musical performance by El Zabaleen (the Garbage Collectors), a local band famous for reusing old materials as instruments to play their music. The Darb 1718 festival engaged many of the […]
A new 2,000-square-meter facility in Jerusalem will be devoted to the study of sustainability. It will be an academic institution from the Council for a Beautiful Israel, located by the Hebrew University’s Givat Ram campus, which caters to the study of the sciences, and some of the Holy City’s most important institutions, including the Knesset […]
Dr. Mamdouh Khalil, a professor of environmental sciences at Cairo University, told Al-Shorfa there is currently a waste disposal crisis in Egypt, because of the lack of waste recycling plants.
In August, Jordan’s Ministry of the Environment started a waste sorting and recycling project at public agencies. According to statements by the ministry, in the first phase of the project, they will implement waste sorting and recycling across a number of ministries, institutions and schools. Environment Minister Yaseen Khayyat said the project is being carried […]
World food prices soared over 6 percent in July according to the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization. Prices are continuing to rise, and food security is already a constant threat in the West Bank and Gaza. The Applied Research Institute in Jerusalem estimates that over half the households in Gaza are food insecure, and […]
Israel’s Deputy Foreign Minister, Danny Ayalon, landed on Monday in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. He continued on to Uganda and Kenya, where he will inaugurate two Israeli-cooperation projects in agriculture and health. According to Gil Haskel, Israel’s ambassador to Uganda, the Jewish state is interested in strengthening agricultural cooperation and collaboration with Uganda. Agriculture and water are […]