The Barn Owls pictured above have recently parented seven little owlets in a nesting box situated on Kibbutz Ma’oz Hai’im just a skip from the border with Jordan, but here’s the rub: the male on the right is Israeli and the female on the left is Jordanian!

Natural pest control

In 2002, with support from the Ministry of Regional Cooperation, the first regional seminar took place at Kibbutz Sde Eliyahu, a leading center of organic agriculture, to discuss the merits of breeding Barn Owls and Kestrels as part of a natural pest control program.

Since then the Ministry of Environment, the Ministry of Agriculture, SPNI and Tel Aviv University have supported the national program in conjunction with Israel Ornithological Center and the ICSBM (Int’l Center for the Study of Bird Migration), which has enjoyed tremendous success according to Dr. Yossi Leshem, Director of ICSBM.

In 2010, the European Union came on board via the Peres Center for Peace in order to extend the program’s geographical reach. Today there are roughly 2,700 nesting boxes scattered throughout Israel, which has mitigated the use of harmful pesticides.

Trans-boundary conservation

The Palestinian Authority has established approximately 200 nesting boxes while the Palestinian Ministry of Agriculture has worked with UNRWA to place an additional 100 or so nesting boxes, according to internal literature forwarded to Green Prophet by Dr. Leshem.

Jordan has also participated in this groundbreaking trans-boundary conservation program by placing a similar number of nesting boxes throughout the kingdom, facilitating the above love affair.

Dr. Leshem admitted in an interview with Moment magazine that it was difficult at first to get the Palestinian farmers on board since they believe that owls are a bad omen. Jordanians share this superstition, as evidenced by Arwa’s recent story in which two men kill an owl and boast about their “achievement.”

Photos: Moty Charter, SPNI

More on Wildlife Issues in the Levant:

Mangled Wild Animals Stuffed and Displayed at Gaza Zoo
Jordan: Two Men Boast About Killing an Owl
Jordan’s Gray Wolves are Hunted, Poisoned Run Over

The post Owl Love Knows no Borders appeared first on Green Prophet.

We have long suspected that in the coming years, as climate change and population expansion put pressure on natural resources, conflicts will arise. The ongoing Egyptian protests demonstrate how repressed rage eventually surfaces when autocrats rule and people are deprived of basic goods and services. It is also interesting how such suffering can skew perception. Iraqis living in the oil-rich Kirkuk province near Kurdistan believe that their Kurdish neighbors are maliciously depriving them of water via the Dukan Dam, though that is not the case. Water scarcity in the entire Middle East region is putting pressure on everyone, but already tense Sunnis seek to pin the blame. Sheikh Khaled al Mafraji told Al Arabiya that their Kurdish neighbors are closing off the dam valves during winter, which means that they do not have enough water to drink or for irrigation. UN figures show that of the 900,000 inhabitants of Kirkuk, 16% rely on agriculture.

They farm wheat and corn in the winter and sesame, tomatoes, and watermelon in the summer.

Sheikh Mafraji added that he was prepared to organize demonstrations if the situation doesn’t improve.

Cooler heads show a different perspective. One landowner describes how in 2005, peasants were forced to give up 1/3 of their land. They claimed that Kurds then exerted pressure through water deprivation.

In Abdul Rahman al-Obeidi’s view, officials in Baghdad and the Sulaimaniyah province are not doing enough to avert what is a potential crisis.

At present, the region is receiving half of its usual annual rainfall. And the dam, which currently holds 1.3 million cubic meters of water, is dangerously low. Of that amount, only 600,000 may be used, since the rest is being held as an emergency reserve.

And the dam on the lesser Zab river has been closed every year during winter in order to preserve water for spring farming.

Tahseen Kader is the former Minister of water resources for the Kurdistan government. Given that many of Kirkuk’s residents are in fact Kurdish, he suggests it is absurd to suggest that they would deliberately harm their neighbors.

With a long history of ethnic tensions between Kurds and Iraqis, both governments would do well to arrest this problem before it gets out of control.

:: Al Arabiya

More on water shortages in the Middle East:

Yemen’s Water Shortage Could Worsen Security

In The Face Of Nile-lessness, Egyptians Protest Water Shortages

Thailand To Help Jordan Make Artificial Rain

image via martijn.munneke

The post Iraqi Sheikh Threatens To Demonstrate If Kurds Don’t Share Water appeared first on Green Prophet.