Dark oxygen collected from the sea floor

Something dark and metallic-like is pumping out large amounts of oxygen from the bottom of the Pacific Ocean, at depths where a lack of sunlight makes photosynthesis impossible, scientists have noticed.

The find has surprised scientists and the source remains a mystery. The oxygen might be generated by metal-rich mineral deposits, some sort of metallic substance or nodules, they claim.

To researchers’ surprise, they measured voltages of up to 0.95 volts across the surface of the nodules. It is possible that the nodules catalyse the splitting of water into oxygen and hydrogen, but more experiments are needed.

The scientists also say this new discovery could change everything about what we know about oxygen itself, and how life as we know it is created.

This challenges what we know about the emergence of life on Earth, researchers say: “When we first got this data, we thought the sensors were faulty, because every study ever done in the deep sea has only seen oxygen being consumed rather than produced,” study lead author Andrew Sweetman, a professor and leader of the seafloor ecology and biogeochemistry research group at the Scottish Association for Marine Science (SAMS)

But when the instruments kept showing the same results, Sweetman and his colleagues knew they “were onto something ground-breaking and unthought-of,” he said.

So what does that mean for deep sea mining? Green Prophet has covered many stories and research to shed light on the problems with deep sea mining and what this could do to delicate, deep sea ecosystems.

Dr. Paul Johnston, from Greenpeace’s Science Unit, says, “This study shows that processes are going on in the deep sea and which are associated with these mineral nodules that we are only just becoming aware of. The ecological importance of this process as a source of oxygen in deep-sea environments is not really known but may be highly important.

“We should impose a moratorium on exploiting these systems because we still lack a comprehensive understanding not only of their biodiversity, but also of the complex ecological functions they support.”

Scientists are joining in the call to protect the deep seabed from mining as the International Seabed Authority in Jamaica this week to decide the future of the deep sea mining industry. 

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Nullker: Who We Are and Why Us?

We won’t brag. We did NOT invent a revolutionary way to save the planet – we simply discovered it! It was hidden in plain sight, in everything that surrounds us, in nature per se.

Nature has been managing itself for millennia, making everything work and stay balanced. Human activity has disturbed this balance. Yet, knowing nature’s ways, we can easily restore equilibrium by synchronizing with it.

In the natural world, everything exists in the form of networks and closed cycles, where all the elements engage in multiple beneficial connections. Think of ecosystems. Everything is at its best. And nothing is ever wasted – it just gets redistributed, reformatted, and reused. The same should be done with the resources people consume and the effort we put in to preserve those resources. 

Translated into the language of economy, the revolutionary way lies through uniting the already existing environmental effort and channeling it in a manner that would enrich all the parties involved: business, communities, and nature.

On “Natural” Economy. 

We believe that the economy should become more… natural (pun unintended)! People should stop fighting against consumption, for it is now an integral part of the modern economic and social reality. What we can and should do instead is change the format of consumption to make it less wasteful and more inclusively beneficial. If you take from the environment – give back in any form convenient. It is already a win-win situation. However, Nullker knows best!..

Our Win-Win-Win Strategy. 

Many of you have heard of the non-zero-sum game – a theory where one participant’s gain does not necessarily mean the other one’s loss. This theory is applicable to economy, as well as ecology. When we consume, nature should not necessarily lose. When we invest into the environmental effort, the economy should not automatically lose. It’s as simple as that. It is the “eco Nash equilibrium” of sorts, where “eco” stands for both ecology and economy.

Nullker went even further and took the standard win-win scenario to a whole new level. The resulting “win-win-win” approach presupposes that people take from nature, give back, and still receive more – from other people and businesses who also value nature and with whom they can create more joint initiatives mediated by Nullker. We bring sporadic eco effort together in a self-perpetuating cooperation on a single platform, making economic and cultural growth easier and more integrated. 

In essence, the key to saving the planet is in working together to unify and multiply the efforts. And this key is held by every single member of the growing Nullker community. The more of us – the bigger the impact.

Same Money – Different Outcome. 

Nullker’s philosophy is the money spent for connecting people and businesses, for popularizing green ideas and brands, for growing the community of people who care – about each other, about the economy, and about the planet.

For us, donation is not a matter of “how much” but more a matter of “how”.

Same money can make a different impact. Here is an example:

#1 A direct donation to an account of an animal shelter is what it is – a good act with a proportional, converted value. The donor’s money converts into a certain amount of food, vaccines, rehab, etc.

#2 A donation via the Nullker platform splits and restructures charity to convert it into a direct monetary input PLUS an investment into bonding with the like minded people and brands, immediately returning to the donator in the form of new contacts, discount points (NULLs), and information.

In the first case, animals get help and donors get moral satisfaction. That’s good, but could be better.

In the second scenario, animals get help, donors get moral satisfaction and NULLs that they can further use to their benefit, for example, by choosing among our partner brands to discover more eco products and services, more stories of people who care. In response, the partner brands are expected to invest more in the ecological initiatives. The bigger the donor base – the bigger the brands, their quantity, and their interest.

All in all, money is the same, but the impact is of tremendously different proportions and reach.

Would you like to join the green new world in the making? Join now https://nullker.com/ Let’s unite our natural and economic resources for a greater and more balanced future!

The post Nullker: A Sustainable Global Community where “ECO” stands for Ecology as much as Economy  appeared first on Green Prophet.

Parasites need to adapt to continue living off their hosts. Almost every type of organism on earth faces parasitism, including us humans. Ecologists have assumed that the parasite has influenced the DNA evolution of its host, and some new science from Israel explores how this relationship works at the gene level.

In the recent study, Pilosof and his colleagues explored this question using data on a community of 14 rodent hosts, their parasitic worms and their alleles of a MHC gene (allele is a molecular variants of a gene), collected in Southeast Asia. A comparison between the structure of a host-parasite network and that of a host-MHC allele network revealed that the structures are highly associated such that hosts infected with similar parasitic worms also harbored similar MHC alleles.

A deeper analysis also discovered groups of MHC alleles and parasites that are more strongly linked to each other (within a group) than with alleles/parasites from other groups in the system. The structure of these groups depended on the structure of the host-parasite network, suggesting MHC-parasite co-evolution at the host community level, rather than at the level of a single species.

The post How your DNA has evolved with parasites appeared first on Green Prophet.

In addition, we contributed toward the planting of Jewish National Fund trees in Israel. If we thought about it at all, we might have imagined a bunch of Israeli trees swaying happily in the Mediterranean breezes, but in reality, the content of the holiday was distant.

More recently, Tu B’shevat has become the rallying cry for Jewish environmentalists who have used the holiday to raise awareness of ecology, the environment and the responsibility of the Jewish community — as a society which has always valued the earth that God gave us — to spearhead the drive towards a more activist approach to environmental responsibility.

Last year I taught an online class to a group of 7th graders in Deerfield Illinois via an online Jewish/Israel education project, JETS Israel. As Tu B’Shevat approached, I decided to use distance learning to make the content of Tu B’Shevat more imminent for my students.

As part of my six-week Tikkun Olam course, I introduced the holiday of Tu B’shevat as a conduit to the value of Tikkun Olam as seen through Israeli agriculture and the observance of ancient laws that have been reinstituted in the modern State of Israel after centuries of disuse.

We started out by looking at the sharing of resources through the law of Maaser (tithing): “Every year, you shall set aside a tenth part of the yield, so that you may learn to revere your God forever.”

I posted the text on the online bulletin board as a way of introducing the connection between Tu B’shevat and Tikkun Olam. The students were asked to relate to different questions that the concept of ma’aser (tithing) brings up.

• Is ma’aser a concept that is still applicable in today’s world?
• Was it easier for people in the “olden days” to give ma’aser than it is today? Why?
• Do you know anyone who gives ma’aser? Can you tell us a little about the person and which causes s/he gives to?

These questions were posted on a linoboard and students clicked on “sticky notes” to drag the note to the question and answer, based on their knowledge, experiences and feelings.

We introduced the question of “why is giving ma’aser, or any charity, an important Jewish value?” The students watched a video about the importance of charity which served as a jumping off point for them to discuss charity in their lives and in their community.

Then, using a Mindmeister board we created a mindmap of the different types of charities that the students felt that they would want to support. Each student was asked to select a Jewish charity, describe its mission and explain the reasons that s/he thought that it would be an important tzdekka to support.

The half-hour class didn’t provide me with enough time to delve as deeply into the subject as I would have liked. However, the kids thoroughly enjoyed the lesson and, their teacher told me, spoke about it among themselves afterward.

Sitting in my home in Israel (3:00 am my time!), I was able to give the students an experience of the Israel-based aspects of Tu B’Shevat that were lost on me when I was a student. In addition the kids participated on their individual laptops, giving each student the opportunity to chat in questions and answers, post on google docs and online bulletin boards and stay involved and engaged in the entire lesson. In an online learning classroom all of the students stay engaged throughout the lesson. A student can’t zone out while someone else is taking “his turn” because it’s always everyone’s turn.

The students are constantly being asked to comment, respond, think, create and produce which gives no one any time for daydreaming.

Increasingly day schools and afternoon schools are including e-learning techniques in their curriculum as a means of broadening the students’ learning experience, expanding their learning community, and enhancing student engagement. enable the students to engage

The 2014 class begins this week which coincides with Tu B’Shevat. I am looking forward to using my “classroom without borders” to enable my new students to experience Tu B’Shevat in Israel.

Laurie Rappeport lives in Safed, Israel. She teaches about Judaism and Israel for an online education concern and researches American Jewish music traditions, including traditions of the Tu B’Shevat holiday, for the Milken Archives.

George Muresan / Shutterstock.com

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Treading the path of righteousness involves the ecology too.

It had never occurred to me that if I were to go camping on Mt. Meron for the upcoming Lag B’Omer celebration, that I’d actually be on pilgrimage. I never thought of my  visits to the Western Wall in Jerusalem as a pilgrimage. But during the days I attended the First International Symposium on Green and Accessible Pilgrimage, I realized that these these trips are in effect, pilgrimages.

An astounding 300 million people leave their homes and travel on pilgrimages every year.This is an unprecedented historical migration, and the effects on the environments where pilgrims pass through are becoming disastrous. Huge numbers of pilgrims put a huge strain on local water, energy, transportation, food and waste disposal resources. Basic issues like sanitation become unpleasant, and even dangerous challenges.

“Everyone has their own belief system, but we have only one earth that we’re trampling on,” said Fiona Kanter, producer of the Symposium.

What ecological issues are there for the individual traveler to consider?

Water issues become personal if you think of all the pilgrims and tourists walking around and drinking water out of plastic bottles. How, and where to discard the bottles has to be considered. A local system where pilgrims pass through could install places where water bottles can be re-filled and used multiple times, finally to be recycled.

The hospitality industry welcomes religious tourists, but the green pilgrim should compare more than just prices when checking hotels out. The green hotel will have a policy against water and food waste, and that’s a factor in a green pilgrimage. But more and more, pilgrims are ignoring hotels and asking to stay with local hospitality; not only to share a roof with local people, but to get to know them and share something more human with them than only money.

Kanter continues,

“For example, there are 200,000 people living in the Kidron Valley. This is an underdeveloped area on our Jerusalem doorstep. It’s a magnificent way of entering Jerusalem, with many beautiful monasteries and heritage sites on its route that should be preserved. Religious tourism could make a great economic change in this area, where the population has specific cultural issues. Women there aren’t encouraged to go out to work, but could be providing home hospitality for the pilgrims coming through. And many travelers today would prefer home hospitality to staying in hotels.

“However, the Israeli water authorities have to work to create an infrastructure dealing with raw sewage flowing through the Kidron Valley. (see our post on the Kidron Valley pollution here.) Sewage, like birds and water, doesn’t know boundaries. It’s approaching Jerusalem and Palestinian authority boundaries. Somehow it dissipates before it gets to the Dead Sea, but it’s flowing through villages and people’s back yards. It’s a disgrace.

“Issues as simple as timing your travels can make a major ecological impact. For instance, I book my flight to England early in the morning or last thing at night, because I know that my flight is shorter during those hours. I’m not adding to the burden of air traffic in the middle of the day. When I get to the airport, which method of transportation do I chose to get to the city or pilgrim site I want? Do I take a bus with another 49 people, or do I use the train, or take a private taxi?”

The Symposium included lectures on equity and freedom of worship, nurturing urban ecology, and infrastructure challenges in historical cities. Lecturers shared their personal experiences in interfaith work, as Rabbi David Rosen recounted of his efforts in South Africa during the height of the apartheid era.

An urban designer showed the audience exactly whose needs have to be met when planning cities – everyone’s. Two pilgrims spoke who crossed Europe and the Middle East to reach Jerusalem – on foot.

And since food crosses borders without needing words, eight top chefs were invited to present their greenest dishes.

Kanter concluded, “When you reach out to people inspired by faith leaders, you are reaching out to these leaders.”

More on greening the world’s pilgrimages:

• Green Pilgrimage Network Supports Sustainable Pilgrimage
• Interview With Green Hajj Expert
• SARS-Like Virus Appears In Saudia Arabia, Alerting Hajj Pilgrims
• First Hajj Safety Guide

Photographs by Miriam Kresh

The post Learning to Green Your Pilgrimage appeared first on Green Prophet.

Over meals and sunset chats at a remote research station in Palmyra Atoll in the Pacific, a group of researchers from Stanford University discover one of the longest ecological interactions ever documented. While Douglas McCauley and Paul DeSalles were tracking manta ray movements for a predator-prey interaction study, Hillary Young was studying palm tree proliferation’s effects on bird communities and native habitats. Soon through discussions of their work and observations, the group of scientists began to see a link between manta ray population densities, bird communities and palm plantations.

“As the frequencies of these different conversations mixed together, the picture of what was actually happening out there took form in front of us,” says McCauley.

Through analysis of nitrogen isotopes, animal tracking and field surveys  the researchers confirmed their intuitions: seabirds roosting on native trees fertilize soils, which increase coastal nutrients and the abundance of plankton, thus attracting manta rays to native forest coastlines. Instead, regions of the atoll where native trees have been replaced by human propagated palms reveal that this interaction chain linking birds to mantas readily breaks down.

In fact, replacing native trees with non-native palms led to about five times fewer roosting seabirds, which led to fewer bird droppings to fertilize the soil below, fewer nutrients washing into surrounding waters, smaller and fewer plankton in the water and fewer hungry manta rays cruising the coastline.

These findings provide a compelling example of how anthropogenic disturbance may be contributing to widespread reductions in ecological interaction chain length, thereby isolating and simplifying ecosystems. Furthermore, the study exemplifies how human disturbance is leading to widespread, yet largely invisible, disruptions of ecological interaction chains. Finally the study highlights the need to build non-traditional alliances — among marine biologists and foresters, for example — to address whole ecosystems across political boundaries in order to efficiently discover, understand and address the need to preserve “invisible” ecosystem processes.

Manta ray image from Shutterstock

The post What Connects Palm Tree Plantations and Manta Rays appeared first on Green Prophet.

“Going green” is a new defense tactic modern military: From the use of solar energy to power field re-chargers for communication equipment to finding new ways to supply troops with drinking water by moisture condensation from vehicle AC units. Armies going green is a new tactical offensive in warfare, especially when it means saving fuel and resulting in less need for fuel supply lines. Cyprus, a small EU island off the coast of Greece and Turkey is the latest army to join the trend. Their reasoning: It’s good for the young troops.

The Greek Cypriot National Guard is adopting eco-management policies set forth by the EU Commission’s European Eco-Management and Audit Scheme (EMAS), according to the Cyprus Mail. They are the first EU army to do so.

Cypriot Defense Minister Demetris Eliadis says: “In an organized society with young people, applying environmental management schemes is an achievable target with real benefits to the environment and is especially important for the environmental consciousness of our recruits.”

The new eco camp, the Lieutenant General Stylianos Kalmbourdjis army camp, located in Delikipos near Larnaca, is incorporating a system of ecology managrment that includes energy and material efficiency, water consumption, waste management, biodiversity and  control of greenhouse gas emissions.

Environment policies  include training troops in ecology management policies and afterwards carrying out periodic audits to correct mistakes made in implementing these policies.

This military camp will be listed on the EMAS environmental database and will be be used as an example for other such bases. Some of the most noted green policies being followed are the use of photovoltaic or solar cells for creating electricity and the recycling of wastes, including the use of recycled water.

Recycling of water by military camps is also for the non-military as well. In an example in Israel’s Negev desert region, recycled waste water is being diverted to provide water for a small lake in a nature park.

::Cyprus Mail

More articles on militaries going green:
Army Sewage Irrigates Nature Park in Israel
Going Green is a Tactical Offensive in War
The IDF Adopts Solar Energy Field Rechargers in Army Practices

Image of grass army boots from Shutterstock

The post The Eco Army of Cyprus appeared first on Green Prophet.

The main goal of these agreements is to extend water networks and create jobs – a welcome move for a largely neglected area of the country. But Sinai development has also become a hot pitching point for presidential candidates, and environmentalists are worried.

Under Hosni Mubarak’s regime, Sinai was the country’s forgotten corridor and limited development occurred. While this has deprived the local Bedouin population access to decent infrastructure, it has also fostered a healthy stream of tourists attracted by the Red Sea’s marine bounty and the slow pace of life.

Since Mubarak was ousted, a certain amount of informal development has taken place. Tireless conservation groups such as Hurghada Environmental Protection and Conservation Agency (HEPCA) have taken strides to monitor opportunists and protect the environment, but they are easily overpowered.

SFD’s Chief Ghada Wali signed an agreement with North Sinia’s Governor Major General E-Sayed Abdul-Wahab to contribute 1.5 million Egyptian pounds towards developing 21 km of water networks that will be distributed to 6 different parts of the governorate. This project is expected to create 6,804 jobs.

The agreement signed with South Sinai’s governor Major General Khaled Fouda will result in an 18km legwork that will create 6,854 jobs. While these seem like development projects that will actually benefit the local population, environmentalists are concerned about some of the promises made by presidential candidates.

The Muslim Brotherhood espoused the most elaborate plan for the peninsula, according to Al-Akhbar news. This is what it entails:

It envisaged dividing Sinai into five economic zones, and focusing development efforts on specific sectors in each (agriculture, commerce, manufacturing, and livestock herding in the northern zone around the provincial capital at al-Arish; mining and small industry in the central zone; agriculture, commerce, and livestock in the west; tourism in the southeast; and tourism along with mining and petroleum extraction in the southwest). Railways would also be built linking Sinai to Suez and Ismailia under the plan, which Mursi estimated would cost Egyptian Pounds (LE) 20 billion (US$3,300,000,000) over a period of five years.

Meanwhile Nature Conservation Egypt (NCE), one of the most outspoken voices for nature in the country, expressed concerns that these plans will proceed without due process, resulting in potential environmental catastrophes. Of greatest concern in Lake Bardawil, an important wetland near the Mediterranean Sea.

On the NCE Facebook page, Mindy el Bin wrote the following in response recently unveiled development plans in Sinai:

NCE supports Sinai Development…but sound and sustainable development that promotes utilization at the same time protection of the natural resource base. There are questions about the development plans…potential impacts? Where is the water coming from? Other alternatives for development i.e. tourism? Of course what is being described is intensive development with major environmental impacts…no talk about potential prevention or mitigation measures…this is the same type of development we had in the past…where is the change and progress?

After Mubarak and his cronies were ousted, we had hoped that Egypt would enter into a new era of responsible development. It’s still too soon to know whether programs will proceed without environmental impact assessments, but we’re definitely on the alert.

:: Bikya Masr

Image credit: Sinai, Shutterstock

More From Egypt, the Muslim Brotherhood and Sinai:

Greenwashing the Brotherhood

Egypt Slashes Longstanding Gas Deal with Israel 

Post-Revolution Development Destroys Popular Red Sea Dive Spot

The post Sinai’s Ecological Future Hangs in the Balance appeared first on Green Prophet.

Julie McIntyre, an ‘Earth ceremonialist’ and director for the Center for Earth Relations is an ecological visionary. Trained in plant medicine, Ayurveda, Reiki, medical herbalism, wilderness survival and holistic health, she’s the lastest to write a book about human relationships and the environmental movement: Sex and the Intelligence of the Heart: Nature, Intimacy and Sexual Energy (Destiny Books, 2012).

In this exclusive Earth Day interview, Julie shares her vision for falling in love with the planet, explains why she thinks the environmental movement has shied away from Ecosex, and how the Ecosex movement can mentor in greater environmental awareness in the Middle East.

Green Prophet: How do you foster a love affiar with nature?

Julie McIntyre: One of at least two ways: You have to want to have a love affair with nature, sometimes it happens spontaneously like going to a favorite spot in the forest or a beach and over time you notice you are falling in love with that particular place of Earth, becoming protective of it and calling it your special place where you go to sit, to think, to be inspired, to be stirred up or calmed down, to feel whole again, and be put back together when you may feel like you’re falling apart. This place becomes your friend, your confidant you tell all your secrets to and you find you are getting authentic knowledge and insights you have not had access to before.

To start with, slow down. Take off your shoes and feel the Earth beneath your feet; sand between your toes, pebbles massaging your souls, be in your body; how does it feel? Feel the air and sun on your skin; do you lean into the wind or brace your back against it? Really see the details in flowers and leaves, look with the eyes of a child as if you are seeing each pebble, each boulder, each tree, each insect as if for the first time. Feel them, smell them, let the experience fill your senses.

Become intoxicated with the sounds and scents flowing around and through you. Go to the Earth, as you would your lover; go the holy waters of hot springs and oceans, go to the tops of mountains, smell the pines, the air after a rain storm, use all your senses. Fall in love with life, with this experience of being a fully alive, fully sensing, fully playing member of the circle of life.

Green Prophet: What message can readers in the Middle East get from your book?

Sex is sex all over the planet. Sex is expressed in many ways and forms but when sex is repressed, the damage it causes goes deep into our personal, social and cultural psyches. Sex cannot be stopped or prevented even though there are attempts to do so. And because sexual energy can not be stopped, as energy it must keep moving and it must be released somewhere in some form; the ideal is to have out in the open, to own our sexual natures, the sexual nature of the Earth and talk honestly about it with each other and our children.  Sexual health and freedom translates to healthier individuals and a healthier culture.

Green Prophet: Why has the environmental movement resisted authentic discussions about sex?

I believe it has resisted authentic discussions about sex because to do so would require that we actually start talking about sex, out loud. It would require looking at personal values, beliefs and behaviors about sex, contaminated baggage many of us carry into childhood into adult sexual relationships. It’s a slippery and wet topic that makes many people uncomfortable because we are uncomfortable about it ourselves, uncomfortable in our own bodies even.

Often in discussions about the environment there is a theme that sounds something like: Men’s sexuality is bad and aggressive and women’s sexual natures are vulnerable and need protecting. Language like: Mother Earth needs protecting; men (and large corporations) have raped and pillaged the land and forests; have created birth control measures on rivers with lock and dams, and so on. So for us to have honest discussions about sex and the environment, men have to own their sexual natures, all of it in its magnificence and beauty and power and the environmental movement must give up seeing women in the victim role and as women we must own our own inherent mysterious, creative and powerful force of our sexual natures.

If we were to actually have honest, real conversations about the sexual natures of ourselves and each other and the sexuality, and sensuality of Earth, our current behaviors would have to change to reflect new beliefs; belief that Earth is a living, breathing, aware, intelligent organism engaged in sexual reproduction on many levels.

Green Prophet: What has been the consequence of that?

The consequences have been dire. Omitting sex from discussions about the environment has created an insanity in our psyches widening the gaping chasm between human beings and Earth, human beings and the other species we live with. It has taken the element of the sacred completely out of the discussion; secularizing our relationship with the Earth. Discussions about the environment without discussions about sex is essentially a lie by omission.

Green Prophet: Share your understanding of intimacy, love and sustainablity in relationship?

Relationships are sustained because you want to sustain it. When you decide this relationship is what you want, you put energy into it, keep it alive and dynamic through intimacy and falling in love with your beloved over and over again; see them new each day. Notice the little things they do, really see them, wrap your heart field and love around them each day.  For love to grow and flourish there must be a commitment to intimacy which is to say, you have a commitment to being vulnerable, to being undefended, to allowing yourself to be seen and naked in the deepest parts of you; who you were, what your hopes and dreams are, what secrets you’ve carried and not spoken out loud.

For intimacy and relationships to survive you must have an intimate relationship with yourself; what inspires you, what are your hopes and dreams and fears? What part of your body do you not have a relationship with or that you hate? What do you do with the fears and disappointments you have? Who would you trust your life with? How do you feel being seen naked? What do you do to get your needs and wants met? Do you hide your feelings and the deep parts of yourself?

Sex and the Intelligence of the Heart: Nature, Intimacy and Sexual Energy explores how nature underlies sexuality and intimacy. It is published by Destiny Books and available this month in bookstores and on Amazon. You can learn more about Julie at the Foundation for Gaian Studies.

The post Earth Day Exclusive: Interview with Julie McIntyre, author of new Ecosex Book appeared first on Green Prophet.

Nemacheilus dori is quite small, measuring only two inches in adulthood. They are the only fish in this particular wetland area and are notoriously difficult to see with the naked eye. That`s because “their color is very similar to that of the ground and they like to be under stones,” says Dana Milstein, an aquatic ecologist for the Nature and Parks Authority.

The fish is challenged in particular by lack of water flows.  The natural spring at Ein Malkoach flows at about 5 cubic meters of water per hour – not enough for the Nemacheilus dori to migrate and seek shelter.  That`s why the Nature and Parks Authority built two additional artificial ponds connected to the river.

The Authority now pumps water into those ponds to create flow.

With a rapidly growing populace and extremely limited real estate (Israel is about the size of New Jersey), ecologists need to think creatively to protect increasingly threatened wildlife and bolster diminishing habitat.

Israeli ecologists have fought to save other critically endangered species over the years. For example, two threatened species of sea turtle – Greens and Loggerheads – nest every year on the beaches north of Tel Aviv.

After the number of female turtles migrating to the beaches plummeted, the Nature and Parks Authority built a hatchery.  Now, with the help of staff and volunteers who monitor the nests, the numbers are steadily increasing.

Additionally, Israel has fully protected 3% of the Mediterranean region and 20% of the desert region as nature reserves. Special rescue operations for protected species such as the leopard, gazelle, ibex and vulture have been undertaken, including establishment of feeding stations and nesting sites.

The country has even taken a few notes from the Bible in its conservation efforts, breeding and reintroducing animals which historically populated the hills and deserts of the Land of Israel into suitable habitats. Such species include the white oryx, ostrich, Persian fallow deer, and roe deer.

Israel`s major wildlife legislation, the Wildlife Protection Law, was established in 1955.  At that time, the law treated “game“ species and “protected animals“ differently.  This distinction allowed for widespread sport hunting.  As a result,protections were not comprehensive and many wildlife species were overhunted.

But it`s not just hunting that has led to significant wildlife declines: Israel has changed significantly during the last 50 years in ways that have severely impacted animals.  Threats to wildlife include habitat loss from housing and infrastructure development, urbanization, appropriation of land for agriculture, pesticide spraying, poisoning and uncontrolled hunting.

In 2010, Israel´s legislature amended the Wildlife Protection Law. The amendment instituted new regulations to control the numerous threats to wildlife.  The changes were sweeping.  All wildlife are now defined as protected.  Sport hunting licenses have been fully revoked.  Transferring and abandoning wildlife is prohibited.  Poisoning wildlife or trading in fur is punishable as a crime.  And stricter penalties are available to enforcement authorities.

An additional reason for the amendment was to implement the requirements of the Convention on International Trade of Endangered Species, to which the country is a signatory.

With the new ponds built by the Nature and Parks Authority, the Nemacheilus dori now swims in flows of 12 cubic meters per hour.  That`s more than double the volume of the river before the artificial ponds were built.  More creative solutions will be needed as wildlife in Israel feel the pressure from human activity.

Above image via the Israel Nature and Parks Authority.

The post Israel Turns on the Tap in River So Endangered Fish Can Swim appeared first on Green Prophet.