The mention of palm oil is enough to make a serious environmentalist wince in shame of what this oil harvesting has been doing to local ecosystems. In a bid to make the industry more sustainable the United Nations Food and Agriculture (FAO) director José Graziano da Silva is calling on innovators, including hydroponics specialists, to […]
Not all witches get the opportunity of going to Hogwart School of Witchcraft and Wizardry to polish their skills. Take my dad for example – a water witch from Newmarket, Canada. Maybe it is because he never made it past grade 8 or because he was never confident enough in his witching powers. Known as a […]
Iceland, made progressive or well at least famous by Bjork, has made some monumental strides by electing Katrin Jakobsdottir, the 41-year-old chairwoman of the Left-Green Movement, as Prime Minister. She is well liked and while a former education minister she is also an avid environmentalist. Iceland, this is the country that slows down speed racers […]
A landmark law was just passed in Israel this year. The Israeli Parliament, known as the Knesset just passed a new law on January 1, that allows both public and non-profit organizations to file a civil suit against any person or organization that damages the environment in general. The law was put into effect after […]
Save the Tigris Campaign and partners announce the first alternative civil society forum for water in Mesopotamia: the Mesopotamian Water Forum will be held from 5-7 April 2019 in Sulaymaniyah, Kurdistan Region of Iraq, and will involve civil society actors from the states of Iraq, Iran, Turkey, Syria. It will be an open space to give voice to those who are marginalized […]
The small but mighty country of Kuwait wants to wake and shake you up. Join a a new community building festival this November that will bring people together from different backgrounds to think creatively about social issues in Kuwait. The two day event will use interactive talks, stories, learning, music, theatre, art, food and more […]
Where will you get your drinking water if it is polluted? How will a father to teach his children to hunt and fish if thousands of acres of forest are bulldozed to make room for shopping malls? Without children who have been taught how to preserve our ecosystems, we will lose all of the beautiful […]
Hundreds of people in Casablanca joined today Greenpeace sun-shaped human banner reading: “Break Free – Go Solar” with the landmark mosque Hassan II in the background in Casablanca-Morocco. Participants delivered a message in English, Arabic and Amazigh calling on world leaders notably from the Middle East and North Africa to accelerate the transition to renewable […]
Spencer Tunick is coming back to the Dead Sea! In 2011, artist Spencer Tunick invited hundreds of people to shed their inhibitions (and their clothes) to raise awareness to the environmental threats facing the Dead Sea.
Part of International Coastal Cleanup Day 20 kayakers will paddle from Caesarea to Jaffa, Israel this weekend September 18 to 20. The team of kayakers are supported by the Mare Nostrum Project, which aims to raise awareness of the need to protect the Mediterranean Sea and its coastlines. The Israeli event “Rowing for a Clear […]
An old (2010) video clip is making the rounds, clunky imagery of a very cool piece of street art, it's underlying message remains perfectly relevant.
"We are Tyred" by Bokja Studio. Bokja design in Beirut embroiders the tires, in protest
Water murals in the Gaza Strip explore the daily struggle with water shortage and water contamination The Gaza Strip is known to indulge in political murals but water murals are definitely a new thing. Over the summer months, US activists along with local artists, teachers and school children got together to paint 8 murals exploring […]
From a long line of egg farmers in Holland, Karin’s dad finally builds her a chicken coop March, 2020 update. A lot has passed since I wrote this post. My dear father Harold died in 2018, my baby girl has grown into a kid, and she has a brother. We now face COVID-19 or the […]
Karin tries urban foraging and eating weeds from her garden. What are the chances she will live after this experiment? Taking cues from the Arab women foraging for mallows in the kindergarten in front of my house, and Miriam’s latest winter salad recipe, I decided to do a little urban foraging myself. (That’s me above […]
The first thing visitors to the Bedouin town of Rahat notice is the litter. Household garbage lies strewn at the sides of treeless streets. When the wind picks up, plastic bags, newspapers and sacks billow across the surrounding desert wasteland. Discarded construction materials mar the landscape. “First you have to understand why they throw litter […]
Just the way disposable diapers are a nightmare for our environment and children’s health, so are all those disposable sanitary products being aggressively marketed. Yes I know that for many, just as cloth diapers, the idea of cloth menstrual pads and moon cups are hard to swallow but really these days there are many converts, […]
Shai Zakai: Self portrait 4X2 m. photograph on canvas purchased by the Ministry of Environment. Since nature can’t speak for itself, Israeli environment artist Shai Zakai has appointed herself as the human moderator. For more than a decade she’s been working as an ecological artist, to communicate and record humankind’s impact on our fragile world. […]
For every ton of paper, roughly 200,000 sheets of paper, that is recycled paper saves us from cutting down approximately 17 trees. The average school tosses 38 tons of paper each year, the equivalent of 644 trees. When you buy notebooks and paper think green and spend a couple extra to get recycled (it’s not […]
Jesse Fox, urban planning and sustainability writer at Green Prophet
We all know the saying: one's mans trash is another man's treasure. Embarrassing as it was in my younger years, my father was a collector and seller of other people's trash and today makes a living from it. He calls it curbside shopping.
“Israelis are tremendously committed to the environment. We can move mountains if optimism motivates us.” Alon Tal founded the Israel Union for Environmental Defense (IUED) in 1990 and has been working in public interest advocacy ever since. In 1996, he founded the Arava Institute for Environmental Studies, an advanced academic center where Israeli, Jordanian, Palestinian, […]