Tighten your city’s green belt on World Habitat Day: Plant trees everywhere, in cities all over the Middle East. When we think of treehuggers, and people who advocate treeplanting, we think 80s hippie, or Julia Butterfly Hill, the gal who lived in a tree for 2.5 years to fight against deforestation. Or the old-fashioned model […]
Sclerophyllous forests in Ramot Menashe now a UNESCO biosphere reserve For such a small country, Israel has some very beautiful and unique natural landscapes and vegetation, including forests (those not destroyed by fires like the recent ones on the Carmel Mountains ), wild flowers like the purple “Argamon Iris,” and eco tour areas like the […]
Everyone hates needles, but don’t be a chicken if you want to vaccinate them against the new avian flu If you’ve been reading the news you’ll know that there is a deadly outbreak of the avian flu virus circling the globe again. This one appears to be deadlier than every, UN health authorities are reporting. […]
Israel is fortunate to have an Environmental Protection Minister who is passionate about his job. So passionate, he gave up an opportunity to work as ambassador to the UN. Israel’s Environmental Protection Minister Gilad Erdan turned down an opportunity to represent Israel as ambassador to the United Nations, according to a Jerusalem Post report. He […]
David Brand (pictured above in the middle), Head Forester of KKL-JNF and Israeli delegate to the UN Climate Change Conference in Cancun, gives us an insider perspective on the conference. Delegates from all over the world have gathered at the UN Climate Change Conference in Cancun, Mexico (COP16) for almost a week now, and discussions […]
Israel may lose one of its most precious nature reserves to wildfire ripping through the Carmel Mountains, killing people, animals and trees. “We have completely lost control of the fire,” Hezi Levy, a spokesman for the firefighting service in Haifa told Globes business newspaper an hour ago, speaking of the fire currently destroying a nature […]
Believed to have been started by arsonists, a deadly fire is racing out of control in UNESCO-protected Carmel Mountain. People, and animals, are being evacuated. Death toll is at 40. Some 40 people trapped in a bus are known to have been killed and 45 more reportedly injured as a massive fire on Israel’s Mount […]
Muslim starts sustainable tree planting operation to make Ethiopia green once again. Visiting Ethiopia after a thirty year absence, Geshaw Tahir an Ethiopian-born Muslim was struck by one thing. The green landscapes and trees that once surrounded his home had all but disappeared and were replaced with dry fields, eroded and ruined after years of deforestation. […]
For the very first time, UN World Development Information Day was observed by a conference in Israel. Since 1972, the United Nations has observed World Development Information Day every year on October 24th (which coincides with United Nations Day). The goal of this day is to concentrate global public opinion on international development problems and […]
Israel and the Palestinian Authority are among 15 Mediterranean nations who have just signed a historic agreement to work together to combat the effects of climate change, one month ahead of the next United Nations conference on climate change, meeting at Cancun in November. The Mediterranean Climate Change Initiative was inaugurated by Greek Prime Minister […]
We question the efficacy of a UN sustainable development panel chaired by the man who “showered off HIV” and including the Foreign Minister from Oil-Rich UAE Culture plays an enormous role in how the environment is perceived and treated. We learned this week how devout Muslims, as a result of their tradition of generosity during […]
Finally environmental and cultural preservers, not destroyers, receive recognition [image by Brood_wich via flickr] UNESCO has ordained 890 world heritage sites around the world, one-third of which belong in the Middle East. While admiring Seville, Spain during a trip roughly two years ago, HRH Sultan Bin Salman bin Abdulaziz Al-Saud, from the country that is […]
Druze woman making bread in the Carmel region, a new UNESCO Bioreserve. Image via Joshua Paquin. It may measure only 77 square miles, but it contains a unique forest of Aleppo pine found nowhere else on earth. That’s one of the reasons why The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) declared the Carmel […]
Karen provides some water-saving tips in praise of International Water Day, Monday. [image via: RonAlmog] This coming Monday, March 22nd will be International Water Day, a time (almost like New Years) for countries to reflect upon their last year of water usage and make resolutions for the year to come. This is especially important in […]
Greening the Desert? A Qatar bank and the UN are now partners. Parts of the Middle East, especially in the Persian Gulf area will get a bigger environmental boost thanks to an alliance between Qatar’s Doha Bank and the UN’s Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, UNESCO. In an article published in the Eye of Dubai news […]
Aora fires up its “sun” flower in the desert. But Israel is not doing enough for itself, says UN. Despite successful companies like Solel and BrightSource, Israel itself is not producing enough power from solar energy, says Cristophe Bouvier, the regional director for Europe at the UN Environment Program, who recently summoned an Israeli delegate […]
Listen up Middle East: The UN wants stronger laws for protecting land, water and wildlife during times of conflict. If the cost of human life isn’t enough for our species to understand, the UN has issued a report on enforcing the laws in place to protect the environment during conflict. Precious desert lilies plowed over […]
Climate change activists are pooling their resources as we speak in Barcelona at the Barcelona Climate Change Talks. This is an antecedent to the big United Nations climate change conference in Copenhagen in December where countries are expected to draft real solutions to stopping the over-production of greenhouse gases. Part-time Green Prophet Stacy Feldman reports […]
A UN worldwide tree planting campaign has now reached the 4 billion mark in its drive to plant 7 billion trees world wide. The campaign is being undertaken to fight the effects of climate change; as well as to prevent soil erosion, one of the most common reasons for desertification in many parts of the […]
With its Mediterranean climate Syria is a natural home to the olive tree (read about the history of the olive tree here). It is ranked 5th in the world in production of olive oil, behind Spain, Italy, Greece and Tunisia, with a share of 4.6% of world production. This makes the olive sector one of […]
Convening at the Ben Gurion University’s Sede Boqer campus on December 14-17, over 350 people from 40 countries are expected to meet and map out ways to combat desertification around the world. The four-day gathering is the largest international conference ever held in Israel focused on an environmental topic, and probably the largest international academic […]
As a source of alternative energy, some people believe that nuclear power is extremely powerful and can be a fantastic green solution to the energy problem. There are several hazards involved though: Purifying the uranium needed to generate the energy is extremely dangerous, and if the waste is not taken care of properly it can […]