Conservation in Israel – Incredible Potential, Enormous Challenges
Despite Israel’s diminutive size – 28,000 km2 – larger than New Jersey, but smaller than New Hampshire – Israel’s biodiversity rivals some of the globe’s biodiversity hotspots.
By
Daniel Orenstein
Israel: A Biodiversity Hot Spot
Daniel Orenstein, Center for Environmental Studies, Brown University
Despite Israel’s diminutive size – 28,000 km2 – larger than New Jersey, but smaller than New Hampshire – Israel’s biodiversity rivals some of the globe’s biodiversity hotspots.(2) Over 700 animal species and almost 3000 plant species make their home in Israel, from the Red Sea coral reefs to the oak forests on Mt. Meron, from Mediterranean sand dunes to tropical oases abutting the Dead Sea.
Israel’s high diversity is attributable to several unique geographic characteristics. First, Israel sits on the only land bridge connecting Africa and Eurasia. As such, the area contains the northern most range of plant and animal species from Africa and the western-most range of many Asian species. Where plants and animals from different ecological zones meet, not only do we find high biodiversity, but we find globally unique assemblages of species and interesting evolutionary developments. Because of this land bridge, Israel is also a major flyway for migratory birds that cross over the region twice a year to and from central Africa.
Second, climatic characteristics in Israel change very quickly from south to north and from west to east. This is due both to Israel’s geographic location on the globe (latitude 30° ) and to diverse topography, ranging from 400 m below sea level at the Dead Sea to 2800 m above sea level on Mt. Hermon. The result: Eilat in the south is a hyper-arid desert with an annual average of less than 30 mm of precipitation. Mt. Meron, less than 400 km to the north near Safed, is covered with a verdant Mediterranean oak forest that receives an annual average of 800 mm of precipitation, some which falls as snow. Likewise, changes in rainfall amounts are rapid over short distances from the east to the west - Jerusalem receives an average of 550 mm of precipitation a year, while the Jordan Valley, 25 km to the east, lies in the rain shadow of the Judean mountain range and receives a yearly average of less than 100 mm of precipitation.
Third, humans have been actively modifying the landscape of Israel for over 10,000 years, and biodiversity responded positively (until the most recent and most extreme landscape modifications, which have had the opposite effect). One type of modification in particular – livestock grazing – has given rise to many plant species that have adapted and thrived in the presences of goats and sheep. Agriculture has also had a positive effect on biodiversity in Israel, providing a food source for wild animals and creating a more heterogeneous landscape. Recently however, industrial agriculture, with deep tilling, pesticide use and higher water demands, may be responsible for a decline in biodiversity, as discussed below. Finally, underlying Israel is 39 different soil types, each of which provides a different set of physical and biological conditions for plant communities above.
The result of all of this is a veritable biological treasure: six amphibian species, 32 fish species (in inland waters), over 100 reptile species, over 500 bird species, over 100 mammals, and almost 3,000 plant species. By comparison, California, which is one of the most biologically diverse states in the U.S., is home to only a slightly greater number of mammal and plant species, though it is 14 times larger than Israel.
Threats and Loss
Although humans have been manipulating the landscape of Israel for thousands of years, the intensity and scale of human impact of the 20th and 21st centuries threatens to eliminate the country’s rich biodiversity. Rapid urban development, driven by economic and demographic growth, is either paving over the habitat of species directly, or it is fragmenting it into small pieces with roads, infrastructure and neighborhoods, cutting off species from the resources they need to survive. According to a 1990 estimate of Israel’s foremost planners, 20% of the land area of Israel north of Beer Sheva was developed with buildings and roads. While this amount may seem small, development in many areas has been more expansive, as in the central district (35% developed) and around the urban centers (Tel Aviv and Haifa districts were 80 and 30% developed, respectively). The impact of fragmenting large tracks of open space into successively smaller pieces with a growing road network and scattered, low density exurban communities cannot be underestimated.
Several ecosystem types have been or are on the verge of being completely lost. Most of the sand dune areas of Israel have been either paved over (as on the southern Mediterranean Coast), plowed for agriculture (as in the Arava valley), or used intensively for military training (as in the Halutza dunes south-east of Gaza). One of the more recent land-use controversies in Israel concerns the use of the Nitzanim area for resettlement of Jewish evacuees from Gaza. Nitzanim is one of the last tracks of relatively undisturbed sand dune habitat. The loss of these habitats is followed by the loss of species that inhabit them, including the endangered Buxton’s Jird (a gerbil) and the critically endangered Negev tortoise. Many of the swamps drained by the early Zionist settlers with much celebration (including the draining of the Hula in the 1950s) led the large-scale loss of wetland species, including fish, amphibians and migratory birds. Many other wetlands have been damaged by pesticide runoff from agriculture or have been dried up as their water supply is diverted for human use. Part of the original Hula Lake, which had been drained for agricultural purposes, has been re-flooded, and some migratory birds have returned to nest.
Another major cause of species loss is hunting, primarily during the period following World War I. The British army armed the Bedouin in hopes of gaining their cooperation against the Ottomans. Apparently, the Bedouin (and later Israeli soldiers and civilians) used the jeeps and rifles rather effectively against deer, oryx and gazelle species. The loss of these species contributed to the loss of large carnivores, which lost a primary food supply. While many species recovered and/or were re-introduced following the 1955 "Wildlife Protection Law," which banned or controlled hunting for non-pest species, a new hunting problem surfaced in the 1990s. Thai agricultural workers employed across the country were supplementing their meager income by hunting with incredibly innovative and effective traps. Their appetite for wildlife has been non-discriminatory, and has affected the populations of birds, mammals, rodents and reptiles. The authors of Israel’s Red Book (inventorying endangered vertebrate species) rank hunting by Thai workers among the gravest recent threats to Israeli wildlife.
Agricultural intensification, including deep plowing, mechanization and widespread use of pesticides led to the loss of many plant and animal species. In addition to the damage caused by the bioaccumulation of poisons in the food chain (when poisons accumulate in the bodies of animals at the top of the food chain), the loss of pest rodents as a food sources seriously affected 39 species of birds of prey. Some of these have recovered, though not to their former population size. Pesticide use has also seriously affected the populations of insect-eating birds, fruit bats, and carnivorous mammals.
Human settlement is often closely followed by settlement of fellow traveler species that are at home in the human environment. Such species compete with the local species for resources and disrupt their lives. They include crows, pigeons, starlings, rats, cockroaches, domesticated cats and dogs and many other species. Further, Israelis have imported exotic plants and animals, which have then gone on to spread into open spaces and compete with local species for resources. These include ring-necked parakeets, a turtle species and various fish species bred for food. Many plant species have likewise been introduced to Israel – either through forestry, agriculture or gardens – and have spread to the detriment of local species.
In summary, a wide set of anthropogenic conditions lead to the destruction of habitats, and to the decline, and in some cases extinction, of species in Israel. Two interesting cases in point are the Ein Gedi oasis next to the Dead Sea and the coral reefs off the coast of Eilat. Ein Gedi is a nature reserve, officially protected for its natural beauty, desert springs and associated wildlife. It is located far away from the urban sprawl around the big cities. However, the springs that feed the oasis belong, in part, to the neighboring kibbutz, which has used its share of water for agriculture. In recent years, the kibbutz built a bottling factory for spring water, and began taking the water from the source spring, rather than from the outlet of the canyon. As a result, the water input to the spring has been drastically reduced and the plant cover along the canyon walls has receded down to the shores of the creek. The narrow canyon in which the spring is found is also a very popular and crowded tourist site. Tourists, even the most careful of them, impact the environment by trampling paths through the vegetation, disturbing animals, and often leaving refuse behind. More recently, tourists have caused wildfires which destroyed most of the remaining plant life in the reserve, which was already parched for lack of water. The future ecological viability of the Ein Gedi Reserve is in doubt.
At the northern tip of the Red Sea, off the coast of Eilat, was once a spectacular coral reef over several kilometers that offered in diversity what it lacked in size. Over the past 20 years, marine biologists have been watching the slow destruction of the reef. The unfortunate proximity of this reef to the intense human activities in Eilat and Aqaba is responsible. The reef is dying (literally, there is almost no new coral development) because of a history of sewage disposal into the gulf, shipping activity and occasional oil spills, tourist who purposely or inadvertently break the corals, influx of nitrogen and waste from fish farming, smothering by sand added to the beaches and construction waste washed into the gulf from the city, and natural storm events. While there is no single cause for the loss of the coral reef community, all but one of the causes are related to human development.
46% of all of Israel’s mammals are either extinct or have a very high to extremely high risk of extinction in the near future. The same is true for 18% of Israel’s locally breeding birds, 22% of Israel’s reptiles, five out of seven of Israel’s amphibians and 22% of the freshwater fish. The Israel Painted Frog is gone forever – it disappeared with the draining of the Hula Lake. The Syrian Spadefoot Toad and the Banded Newt may follow soon with local extinction, victims of the loss of their seasonal pond habitats. The giant Green Turtle, which used to nest all over the northern beaches of Israel, is critically endangered. It no longer has suitable beaches to nest in due to development. Where it does nest, its nests are trampled by pedestrians and all-terrain vehicles. The Mediterranean Monk Seal, which could be found on the Israeli and Lebanese coasts until the past century may soon be extinct globally. The leopard has been hunted and run-over on the roads to the point of being critically endangered. The cheetah and the brown bear are gone from Israel and will not be coming back (they could not exist in close proximity to humans without posing a threat to humans).
Endangered Group Total # Species or Critically Endangered Regionally Extinct Fish 32 6 [19%] 1 [ 3%] Amphibians 7 4 [57%] 1 [14%] Reptiles 103 (3) 20 [19%] 3 [ 3%] Birds 206 23 [11%] 15 [ 7%] (4,5) Mammals 104 37 [36%] 9 [ 9%] (6)
From: The Red Book: Vertebrates in Israel (2004).
Nature Preservation: Meeting the Challenge
Israel has a good set of laws for protecting wildlife, including those banning hunting and those creating a large set of nature reserves that cover 25% of the country. However, even in nature reserves, survival of species in not guaranteed. Sixty percent of Israel’s 150 nature reserves are smaller than 1 km2, and an additional 25% are between one and 10 km2. Further, 50% of Israel’s nature reserves are also used as army firing zones, bringing their true conservation value into question. Finally, the nature reserves are small relative to the demand among the Israeli public for their use. Each Passover or Independence Day, the authorities plead with the public not to come to the nature reserves, which were already overrun beyond capacity with eager tourists. The following day, the news dutifully reports how many tons of trash are being hauled out of the reserve.
Nonetheless the reserves exist and are important to Israelis. These reserves form the nucleus of the land needed to assure long term conservation of species and the habitats in which they live. Further, spatial planners in Israel now take the preservation of open spaces as a high priority in future development. Israel’s national planning guideline, Master Outline Plan 35, provides legislative backbone for resisting low-density, dispersed human settlement. Nature protection agencies and non-governmental organizations like the Israel Union for Environmental Defense are becoming adept at using the legal framework for protecting habitat. Although the Nature and Parks Authority has had some success with wildlife re-introduction programs, it is abundantly clear that without the preservation of large tracks of relatively undisturbed ecological systems, long term survival of much of Israel’s biodiversity is in doubt. The challenge for Israeli conservationists and their allies is more profound, in many ways, than that of their American counterparts. The area is much smaller, the diversity is much higher, and every inch of ground is hotly contested. Further, in Israel we must balance our desire to preserve some of the remaining open spaces in the center of the country with our desire to retain the last great tracks of nature in the Negev and the Galilee. Securing preservation of open spaces will force us to confront fundamental beliefs in Israel regarding population growth, development of land, forestry and agriculture. The ongoing conflicts between Israelis and Palestinians and internally between Jews and Arabs in Israel will also have to be equitably resolved in order to stop illicit development by Jews and Arabs of open space.
American Jews can help in significant ways. First and foremost, we can support Israeli activists in their efforts – they are, after all, representing our concerns for nature conservation in Israel. The Israel Union for Environmental Defense and the Deshe Institute of the Society for the Protection of Nature in Israel are especially worthy of support in this regard. Become familiar with landscapes of Israel that are threatened. The Mediterranean seashore, the Carmel forest, the coral reefs in Eilat, and the oases of the Negev, and the Dead Sea are the centerpieces of tourism in Israel – voice your concerns for their long-term protection to your Israeli hosts, through letters to Knesset members and to the local English (or Hebrew!) press, including the Jerusalem Post, Ha’aretz English Edition, and the Jerusalem Report. Seek out coalitions of support for species preservation in Israel among diverse ethnic and religious groups. The Coalition for Environment in Jewish Life and the Jewish Global Environmental Network have been instrumental in building these coalitions in the U.S. and between Americans and Israelis. Whether our concern rises out of desire to preserve cultural landscapes, God’s creation, or the fabulous results of millions of years of evolutionary change, each of our communities have something valuable to contribute to the effort to preserve Israel’s spectacular biodiversity.
(1) With appreciation, much of the data here is drawn from Dolev, A. and Perevolotsky, A. (eds). 2004. The Red Book: Vertebrates in Israel. Israel Nature and Parks Authority and the Society for the Protection of Nature in Israel. Jerusalem. The opinions here are the author’s alone. Where relevant, I have included hyperlinks to websites that can provide additional information and illustration. (2) This area is bounded by the Jordan River to the east and the Mediterranean Sea to the west, and so includes the Palestinian areas. We do not distinguish here between Israel and the Palestinian areas only because the biodiversity surveys include both areas. If only pre-1967 Israel were considered, the total numbers of species indexed here would likely be lower. (3) Includes only locally-breeding, indigenous species (4) Includes those species who no longer breed locally (5) Includes one species in process of re-introduction (6) Includes four species in process of re-introduction
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