Grrrrrrrrrebit! This may seem a bit far fetched, but a scientific study carried out in the Journal of Zoology regarding the behavior of animals prior to the occurrence of a serious earthquake has found that some animal species, especially toads, may be able to predict the occurrence of an earthquake in enough time for people to prepare for one. For years, scientists have been studying the behavior of various animals prior to earthquake occurrences; and the fact that much of the unusual behavior seen in animals before earthquakes is also seen in other situations, and also confuses the over all picture. But if true, this news might benefit the earthquake prone Middle East. 

Most studies of animal behavior in relation to predicting seismic occurrences have been with domestic animals, such as dogs, chickens, cattle, etc. And even these studies have only found that unusual behavior exhibited in these animals occurred within 2 or 3 days of an actual earthquake.

Studying animals in the wild is another matter entirely, however. Recent studies of animals such as rodents, fish, reptiles (especially snakes) and amphibians have divulged that these animals have exhibited unusual behavior for periods of up to two months prior to an actual earthquake occurring.

The situation of common toads, both males and females, appears to be even promising as studying their behavior in their habitats prior to a major earthquake appears to have a more promising in regards to sensing the earth’s natural geological instability in periods prior to earthquakes.

Toads are usually terrestrial amphibians, which are only found in water during breeding. By observing both male and female toads during this period, it was found that in periods leading up to earthquake occurrences, less toads were observed in the breeding areas, and even disappeared altogether in the days prior to the outset of a seismic tremor.

One theory appears to be that the animals could be detecting raised radon gas levels; and there have been many reports of radon anomalies in groundwater before earthquakes, although they do not occur 100% of the time.

Earthquakes occur more frequently in those parts of the world where the outer layers or plates of the earth’s crust, known as the lithosphere, are affected by inner, hot layers, known as the asthenosphere that finds a crack in which to rise as a hotspot. This causes the cooler, upper plates to shift, causing an earthquake tremor.

Some parts of world are more suscepable to this phenomenon occurring, especially in what is known as the “ring of fire” that pertains to the edges of the continents surrounding the Pacific Ocean, where the Pacific Plates under the ocean floor “collide” with those on the continental land areas. The recent 7.1 magnitude Chilean earthquake was a result of the Pacific Plate colliding with the land based South American Plate.

Regarding how toads figure into the general scheme of things, the scientific findings, as noted in the Journal of Zoology, found that 96 percent of male toads (Bufonidae) in a population abandoned their breeding site five days before an earthquake struck L’Aquila Italy, in April, 2009. The breeding site was located 65 kilometers from the earthquake’s epicenter.

The scientists said the number of paired toads at the site also dropped to zero three days before the earthquake.

Being Italian toads, and due to some natural occurrence interfering with the animal’s most favorite pastime (as noted in the photo), it must have taken a real outstanding event, like the earthquake, to interfere with la dolce vita. After all, some activities are better than eating flies – or whatever it is that toads eat. [Karin, Green Prophet's editor, who studied amphibians and insects in university says that toads love ants.]

All that said, we have our own earthquake problems here in the Middle East, especially along the Syria-African Rift or Great Rift Valley which borders Israel, Lebanon, Syria, Jordan and the Palestinian Authority, as well as in the eastern Mediterranean.

So taking this into mind, maybe we should pay better attention to those ugly, warty looking things we occasionally find in our gardens.

::IRIN news

More articles dealing with earthquakes and volcanos:

Middle East Aid Springs into Action Following Haitian Earthquake

San Francisco’s Sherith Israel Synagoge to Become Earthquake Proof

Middle East Airlines Wait for Volcanic Ash to Settle

Ormat Taps into Geo-Thermo  Volcano Activity in Indonesia

The Yemen Tourism and Promotion Board announced the plan on Thursday to boost the country’s tourism industry. Each of the planned six facilities along the Yemeni coast is valued at $150 – $250 million. In addition, 44 small-to-medium-sized projects across the country’s mountainous interior will be built, ranging from three-star hotels to mud and stone huts.“I’m inviting potential investors to invest in the Yemen tourism sector as we have six major projects in the pipeline approved by the government,” said Omar Babelgheith, Yemen’s deputy minister of tourism development.

The projects “will change the image of Yemen tourism,” he said. The total amount of all the projects is estimated at $1bn said Babelgheith, “which will contribute to support Yemen as one of the main destinations of the world.”

“Yemen has been trying to diversify its economy from oil,” Ginny Hill, Project Leader of the Yemen Forum at Chatham House, told The Media Line. “Tourism has been indentified as one possible sector.”

“However, unless the security situation improves then Yemen will struggle to attract tourists,” she warned.

Yemen’s dire economic condition is often cited by regional experts as a major cause behind the country’s chaotic political situation.  “There are some obvious problems and some not so obvious ones,” Dr. Stephen Steinbeiser, resident director of the American Institute for Yemeni Studies in Sana’a, told The Media Line.

“The obvious area being security,” he said. “The given picture is that Yemen is an unstable place but parts of the country are relatively stable, such as [the capital] Sana’a and the port city Aden.”

“Daily routine continues on a regular basis and most people don’t encounter that type of violence,” Steinbeiser said, referring to a suicide bomb attempt on the British ambassador last month.”

“Until … foreign tourists can travel freely I don’t think there will be an increase of tourists,” he added.

The central government in Sana’a has been fighting with a militant group, belonging to an offshoot of Shi’a Islam known as the Al-Huthi rebels, in the northeast of the country since 2004.

In addition, the government is fighting a secessionist movement in the south, which accuses the government of unfairly diverting the south’s oil wealth. The movement is also calling for a return to the two-state division, in place before Yemen gained independence in 1967.

For the past two years, there have been increasing fears that Al-Qa’ida in the Arabian Peninsula is taking advantage of Yemen’s unstable political situation to strengthen its presence in the region.

The fighting in the north has displaced an estimated quarter of a million people. Humanitarian aid is needed for them as well as many Somali refugees who have fled to Yemen as a transit station on their way to reach the wealthy Gulf countries.

However, despite these negative developments, revenue from tourism grew by 2 percent to $903 million in 2009 compared to 2008, according data from the Yemeni Ministry of Tourism.

The United States Department of State currently has a travel warning in place for Yemen stating that it “warns U.S. citizens of the high security threat level in Yemen due to terrorist activities. The Department recommends that American citizens defer non-essential travel to Yemen.”

From garbage dump to municipal park.

The impressions of Alexandria I shared in a recent post were largely negative, so here I’ll present a happier picture: a green oasis in Cairo built upon a former garbage dump. The photos are mine; the background information comes mainly from touregypt.net.

Hard to believe, but this delightful site was formerly a municipal garbage dump.  Some 80,000 truckloads of debris that had accumulated over centuries were cleared as part of the park’s development. In comparison, the Hiriya project near Tel Aviv should be a piece of cake. (See: Going On A Picnic to Tel Aviv’s Garbage Mountain.)

The 74-acre park was inaugurated in 2005 and funded ($30 million) by the Aga Khan Trust for Culture. According to touregypt.net: “The Aga Khan decided to donate a park to the citizens of Cairo in 1984, out of the Islamic belief that we are all trustees of God’s creation and therefore must seek to leave the world a better place than it was before us.”

More from touregypt.net: ”The multidisciplinary project presented a range of complex technical issues, including highly saline soils which first required the creation of specialist nurseries to identify and grow the best plants and trees for the soil, terrain and climate.

“Over two million plants and trees were propagated, of which over 655,000 have now been planted in the park. This also required the incorporation within the park of three large fresh water reservoirs for the city of Cairo each 80 meters in diameter and 14 meters deep.”

“The park’s vegetation varies from dry, succulent plants on the western slopes to lush, grassy meadows with shade trees, to formal gardens and, finally, to bustan-like orchard spaces. “

Of course, all is not rosey in Cairo. Besides the park’s proximity to the historic Citadel and Muhammad Ali Mosque (visible at the top-right), it is also adjacent to one of the most impoverished areas in Cairo – the City of the Dead, a neighborhood built among the tombstones.

Cognizant of the stark contrast between the lush park and its dire surroundings, the park’s developer – the Aga Khan Trust – has initiated a range of community-based urban renewal projects and offers micro-credit loans to enable residents to open small businesses.

More on Cairo:
Keep It Clean Cairo
Tap Into Solar Energy at MENASOL
Get A Ride With Egypt Car Poolers

Despite its impressive shoreline, Alexandria – the self-proclaimed “Capital of Arab Tourism” – seems to be a city in decline. (Hint: watch out pedestrians).

When the Green Prophet’s editor heard I’d be stopping in Alexandria en route to the MENASOL solar energy conference in Cairo next week, she asked (implored) me to write a post from there. So, after my first day in Egypt’s second largest city, here are a few first impressions. (I’ll let some pictures do the talking too.) Any Alexandrians or others familiar with the city are invited to comment and tell me what I missed and where these first impressions are mistaken.

I arrived in Alexandria on a bus that raced down the narrow Cairo-Alexandria desert highway, with the driver blasting his horn every few seconds to warn anyone else on the road to get out of his way. I was later to discover that Alexandria is also the most treacherous place I’ve ever experienced as a pedestrian. However, I seemed to be one of the only tourists strolling around the city. (A souvenir peddler later explained to me that most foreign tourists get bused straight to and from their cruise ships to the various museums and sites.)

Anyway, approaching Alexandria from the desert road is not very pretty. A large industrial complex, belching smoke, reminded me of the ugly stretch of New Jersey you pass after exiting lower Manhattan.

The industrial complex on the outskirts of Alexandria reminded me of this scene from New Jersey.

I was prepared to encounter a city that had lost the cosmopolitan vigor and romance depicted, for example, in Lawrence Durrell’s Alexandria Quartet, but I did not expect to find such a thick layer of neglect and litter. (I am writing this now after arriving in Cairo a few hours ago and I was surprised to find Cairo much cleaner and somehow less manic.)

Here’s a picture of Alexandria’s most famous mosque.

Just adjacent to the mosque is a dilapidated market with piles of garbage and an awful stench. I did meet one local beauty there, however.

The kids below also seem undeterred by the trash floating in the sea and piled up on the beach – just across the street from one of Alexandria’s top attractions, the Bibliotheca Alexandrina.

The impressive library, completed in 2002, is sparkling clean and state-of-the-art. The library includes skylights to illuminate the expansive reading areas without allowing direct sunshine to reach the books. Part of the complex (pictured below) is designed to represent the rising sun.

Are these solar panels? Nope. And the library tour guide noted that I was not the first person to ask this question.

To be fair, I did find some tidy corners of the city, and people making an effort to clean up.

My first impressions of Alexandria might suggest that the sun is setting – or has already set on the once grand city. But perhaps I’ll come away from the MENASOL conference later this week convinced that the sun is indeed rising for Egypt, including its famous port city.

Read more about MENASOL:
Have Sun to Spare? Meet DESERTEC at MENASOL
Tap Into Solar Energy Potential of the Middle East at MENASOL
An Interview With MENASOL Organizers

This Gulf of Mexico oil spill may make Exxon Valdez seem like child’s play. Image via MNN

The massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, is already being referred to by many as “President Obama’s Katrina.” The ongoing spill, a direct result of an explosion on an offshore oil drilling platform has resulted in millions of gallons of crude oil moving toward the American Gulf Coast in an ever widening oil slick that is “threatening to surpass the 1989 Alaskan Exxon Valdez oil spill disaster that occurred 20 years ago,” according to CNN.

President Obama himself went on nation-wide TV to say “although British Petroleum is responsible for the damage being done (since the well was in a field being explored by BP) we all share responsibility for the consequences of the environmental and economic damage being caused by this tragedy”.

Already, fishing grounds off the Louisiana coast, as well as waterfowl nesting and breeding grounds, are threatened by the spill. Certain fish species such as bluefin tuna, which breed in the Gulf of Mexico, may be especially in danger.

The plight of bluefin tunas from over-fishing was already noted in my article on March 26, this year.

Why this current environmental nightmare may have implications for other parts of world, including the Middle East, is evident due to current offshore exploration for natural gas now going on in the Eastern Mediterranean. The environmental ramifications of offshore drilling for natural gas in this region was also noted in another article on Green Prophet. Oil and gas spills make us mad and worried.

The present oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico is still to early to come to a final conclusion as to the magnitude of the damage that will be caused. But critics to the current US Administration say that like the Katrina hurricane disaster in August, 2006, the response by the Obama Administration is “too little – too late.”

Due to this, and the implications this disaster will have on offshore drilling in other areas (including the eastern Mediterranean), more will be said about this subject in future articles. Meanwhile you can follow updates on the Gulf of Mexico spill on the US Environment Protection Agency, via Mother Nature Network.

What does whale excrement, or poop, have to do with enriching the world’s marine environment? Plenty,  according to a recent  article on Greenbang. The “poop” the article is referring to is that contributed by whales whose diet is largely consisting of ingesting thousands of pounds of a small marine crustacean known as krill. Krill are small, shrimp-like creatures whose average size is that of a paper clip, and are full of iron that they obtains from the sea; especially from feeding on algae in many of the world’s oceans. Their poop, also, helps our oceans absorb the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Now’s a better time than ever to Save the Whales!Whales that feed on krill include the world’s largest living mammals: the majestic blue whale; which are not only found in the northern and southern oceans, but in locations such as the Gulf of Eden in Yemen, and in parts of the Persian Gulf.

Since algae is one of the world’s best sources of carbon, the whales ingest a certain amount of carbon and iron from the large amounts of krill they eat. The amounts of krill ingested amount to thousands of tons a year by producing a large amount of excrement, containing as much as 12 per cent iron.

Collecting whale poop for study

Of course, whales are not the only large marine mammals found in sea, including bodies of water like the Gulf. At least 4,000 dugongs (large gentle marine herbivores, related to the manatee of sea cow) also live in the Gulf, as well as 40 different species of dolphins.

In a recent Green Prophet article , I expressed environmental concerns for the well being of the Gulf’s dugong population that in some parts of world is threatened with extinction.

The fact that whales, a very much endangered species, make so much of a contribution to fertilizing the sea, it would seem that more of an effort should be made to save them from the harpoons of whalers, as well as from environmental dangers like oil and chemical spills, ingestion of plastics and other waste materials, mercury and other metals poisoning; and global warming, which has an effect on the very food the whales like to eat.

Steve Nicol, a scientist for Australia’s Antarctic Division, estimates that whales are responsible for “recycling” more than 12% of the iron found in the Southern Ocean alone. And this iron comes largely from krill which hold large quantities of iron in their bodies.

As noted by Nicol: “Approximately 24 per cent of the total iron in the Southern Ocean surface water is currently stored within krill body tissue.”

This works out to an estimated 379 million tons of krill in the Southern Ocean alone that includes an iron supply of about 15,000 tons.

Since blue whales are frequently sighted in both the Gulf of Aden and the Persian Gulf, it means that the poop they generate is helping to fertilize and increase the iron content of these bodies or water. Other marine mammals, fish and birds also feed on krill, including albatross, pelicans, cormorants, and species of seals and sea lions.

Naturally, the future of large sea mammals like whales depends heavily on ample supplies of krill. These magnificent animals have few natural enemies, outside of predators such as killer whales (Orcinus Orca) which are actually members of the dolphin family This only leaves one earth mammal that is now the greatest threat to the future of the whale population – and the quantities of iron-rich excrement they produce. And that mammal is non-other than Man.

Image via www.divematfrix.com
::Greenbang

Read more on benefits of poop and algae:
Qteros Makes Bio Fuel from Animal and Human Excrement.

Expanding the Role of Algae for Food and Other Products

Algae Into Bio Fuel in Joint Israel-Chinese Project

Shaul the fisherman hoses down a load of imported sea bream flown in from Greece, speaking nostalgically of the good old days when the catches were plenty: “When I was a kid, fishermen would toss out 150 hooks and haul in 100 kilos of fish,” says Shaul Rokach, a 57-year-old fishmonger from Jaffa.

“Today the fishermen toss out 3,000 hooks. He starts letting them out and doesn’t know when it will finish and in the end he hauls in 15 kilos, maybe. They can’t even cover the cost of the bait let alone the fuel. “Once my smile spread from ear to ear,” he adds. “My pockets were full of money. We’d strut down the piers. Now, they’re just trying to kill off the profession.”

Rokach is not the first fisherman to complain there are no longer any fish to catch in the holy land. Tradition holds that Jesus and his disciples fished the Sea of Galilee. According to the New Testament, Apostle Simon Peter ran a fishing business on the shores of the lake and complained that his net kept coming up empty. Jesus told him to cast his net again and it came up bursting with fish (Luke 5:4).

Generations have carried on this tradition, and today the most popular fish in the lake is dubbed St. Peter’s Fish, or Tilapia. But after being almost overfished to death, in the coming six weeks the Israeli government will gradually enforce a total ban on fishing in the biblical lake an effort to bring it back to life.

The new, two-year ban will force some 200 licensed fishermen out of the Sea of Galilee in search of a new trade.

“We will support the fishermen and make sure the lake is restocked with fish,” Israel’s Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu said when announcing the ban after his weekly cabinet meeting.

The Sea of Galilee has witnessed a dramatic decline in fish, largely due to illegal practices such as catching breeding fish and preventing fish populations from growing. Millions of hungry migratory birds also feed heavily on the fish.

The ban on fishing in the fresh water Sea of Galilee in northern Israel has been discussed for some time. A joint, formal plan was recently formulated by Israel’s Agriculture Ministry, Environment Ministry and Treasury.

“There is a world wide trend in the decline of fish,” Hagay Noyberger, chief fishing ranger from the Israeli Ministry of Agriculture tells The Media Line. “In Israel it’s the same. It’s caused by pollution, overfishing, global warming and other phenomena.”

Prof. Menachem Goren, an aquatic biologist from Tel Aviv University, says overfishing was the principal problem in the declining fish stocks.

“There are too many fishermen, too many boats, over fishing and no management,” he says, speaking in his laboratory with shelves full of bizarre sea creatures preserved in jars. “The situation has become very bad not just in the reduction in the numbers of fish, but also in the size of those which remain.”

The Ministry of Agriculture reports that there has been a steady 20 percent decline each year in Israeli fish catches. In 2000, for example, there was almost 4,000 tons of fresh catch recorded. By 2006, just over 2,000 tons of fresh fish were caught.

Unlike neighboring countries, Israel does not ban fishing during the three to four month fish reproduction season, thus denying the fish population a chance to recover.

“In most Mediterranean countries, fishing is banned during the summer time and this allows the fish to breed and to grow,” says Prof. Goren. “Here in Israel we don’t have any regulation of this kind right now. So the fishermen fish all year round and they don’t give the fish any chance. They remove the mothers while they are small before they get to maturity and that is it.”

Noyberger says this too was about to change.

“We want to close areas to fishing in order to replenish the stock. It is a long process and not something that takes a day or two,” the fish ranger reveals.

Noyberger refuses to elaborate, but reports say these no-fishing zones will be off the coast of Tel Aviv, Ashkelon and the rich breeding grounds of Achziv just south of the Lebanon border.

The result of these changes is that Israeli fishermen are a dying breed, and the few who do remain say many have quit the trade out of frustration.

Rokach, known as “Shaul the fishmonger” from Jaffa, abandoned his boat to make a living importing fish.

“I’ve got salmon from Norway, grouper from Egypt, and cod and mackerel and sea bass,” he says, rattling off his imported stock. “People love fish a lot. All the fishermen I know are retiring and there are no new fishermen. I miss it, but let me remain with my good memories.”

The Ministry of Agriculture admits it has a plan to encourage the retirement of at least a third of the country’s legal fishing fleet. There are about 400 licensed boats in the Mediterranean, Sea of Galilee and Red Sea and about 3,000 registered fishermen.

“In order to improve fishing for the coming generations there is a trend to try and reduce the fishing fleet,” says Noyberger. “It is not something that will happen tomorrow, but if possible we will in the coming years reduce it by a third so that those who do remain will be able to make a living… The fishermen who are less active might find it worth their while to leave the profession.”

More green news from the Sea of Galilee:
Hope Bottle Tree to Educate Importance of Recycling
Israel to Compensate Jordan for Polluted Water
A Luxurious Vacation Near the Galilee Sea

(This story was first published by The Media Line) Image via the lees

Increasing salinity and higher water temperatures may be causing problems for wildlife in many parts of the Persian Gulf. But in one location at least on Abu Dhabi’s Bu Tinah islands, located 130 km west of the sheikdom’s capital, rare hawksbill sea turtles, dugongs, dolphins, and thousands of birds appear to be very happy on or around the island, according the Abu Dhabi newspaper The National.In fact, things seem to be going so well for the animals who consider small the island archipelago as “home,” that Bu Tinah’s Marwah Marine Biosphere Reserve  has been nominated as one of 28 finalists to be chosen as part of the seven world’s most natural wonders. This in itself is a wonder since the waters there are some of the world’s most saline, and where water temperatures often reach as high as 35 degrees Celsius during the hot summer months.

Bu Tinah hawksbill turtle

Besides the hawkbills, of which a number of new nesting sites were recently found, the archipelago boasts a dugong population of around 600. The dugongs are large, gentle marine mammals that feed on sea grass, compose nearly 25% of the total dugong population of 3,000 that live in the waters in and around this part of the Gulf.

These creatures were highlighted recently in a Green Prophet article that expressed concerns for these creatures, whose numbers have been dwindling worldwide.

In addition to marine life, the archipelago attracts thousands of waterfowl and other birds, including flamingos, ospreys and other raptors, and soccotra cormorants, which roost in Bu Tinah’s mangroves and other vegetation.

All this is good news for a region  being threatened by pollution caused by over development of  artificial islands, and other large real estate projects in both Abu Dhabi (Al Rheem Island); and in neighboring Dubai, where coastal erosion is taking its toll on the region’s environment.

That this small Gulf archipelago is being considered along with other sites such as Australia’s Great Barrier Reef, and America’s Grand Canyon is very noteworthy, and gives an indication that despite Man’s encroachment, some natural areas are still able to flourish and be home for so many animal species.

Abu Dhabi’s main environmental agency, Environment Agency-Abu Dhabi (EAD) plans to spend Dh28 million (US$7.6 million) to promote Bu Tinah, which the EAD described as an ecological “miracle.”

According to EAD’s spokesperson, Ms. Laila al Hassan:

“We’re sending a message out to the world that our region is not just about oil; and it isn’t just about rapid development. We take conservation very seriously, and we’ve managed to protect Bu Tinah Island as part of this biosphere reserve for so long.”

With all the not-so-good environmental news coming from this region, it’s refreshing to see that there are still eco-friendly parts of Gulf that are conducive to attracting various forms of wildlife. It’s something for regional states to take notice of and try to increase these natural “islands of beauty” that used to be so prevalent there.

Image via New 7 Wonders:

More environmental Gulf Region articles:

Persian Gulf “Mermaids” Threatened by Environmental Problems

Coastal Erosion Threatens Environmental Spots in Gulf Region

Gulf Island Projects are an Environmental Disaster Waiting to Happen

Saudi Arabia is probably not on your list of dream vacation spots – especially if you’re a woman traveller, or want to work on your tan, or get back to nature. However, seeking to boost its tourist offerings as part of a wider effort to diversify its sources of revenues, the oil-rich kingdom announced on Arabian Business.complans earlier this month to build the largest environmental tourism park in the Middle East. The new project, called Musma Park, is slated for Hail province in north-central Saudi Arabia.

According to the website of the Saudi Commission for Tourism and Antiquities, Hail province “is rich with its beautiful natural sites represented in the mountains, deserts, and the botanical and zoological life … there are some caves, craters, and beautiful plateaus with great scenery and soft breeze.”

Saudi Arabia’s tourism market actually generated nearly $19 billion in revenues last year – accounting for about 6.5% of the country’s GDP – and could reach $64 billion by 2019, according to ArabianBusiness.com.

However, Islamic tourism – the hajj or umrah – currently accounts for much of the kingdom’s tourism traffic. New tourist developments such as Musma Park and a series of projects on the Red Sea coast are intended to serve as a “Mecca” for tourists who come for reasons unrelated to religion.

Neighboring Abu Dhabi is also conducting feasibility studies for developing eco-friendly desert resorts, similar to the Al-Maha resort in Dubai, with an eye toward attracting European tourists.

(Image via saudiembassy.net)

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 Mountain range on the outskirts of Haifa, Israel, an international bioreserve (like the other UNESCO Bioreserves we’ve mentioned on Green Prophet).

To protect and preserve the rare forest and wildlife in the Carmel Mountain region, known biblically as the place of refuge for the Prophet Elijah, and in ancient history as an archeological hotspot for human settlement, the University of Haifa has set up the Center for the Study of the Carmel in cooperation with the Israel Nature and Parks Authority.

More than 20 researchers from the disciplines of biology, ecology, political science, archeology and law will be using the center’s state-of-the-art research facilities and laboratories to supervise educational and preservation projects related to the unique topography, rock distribution and flora and fauna of the bioreserve, 10 percent of which is inhabited by people, mainly from the indigenous Druze population.

The site is an important one for animals and plants, agrees Prof. Ido Izhaki who heads the newly inaugurated center, but he says that he will make human education a focal point for protecting the reserve.

“UNESCO declared more than 10 years ago that the region will be a bioreserve,” Izhaki, a biologist and ecologist, tells ISRAEl21c.  ”In Israel there is only one, from about 500 bioreserves around the world. They recommended that there be a research institute to investigate and research this biosphere. And ours is now the only example in the world where you have a university inside the reserve itself.”

The University of Haifa is located in the reserve, but on the outskirts of Haifa, Israel’s third-largest city, which is technically not part of the UNESCO designation. “All these reserves found all around the world are meant to protect biodiversity,” explains Izhaki. “There are many problems and solutions as to how to do this. The big question is how to keep sustainable development, nature, and the wild plants and animals.”

The bioreserve is an excellent place for exploring archeology, biblical heritage, cultural diversity in Israel, and of course, plants and wildlife. According to Izhaki, it has three major distinctions: First, it’s the only bioreserve in the eastern Mediterranean to contain a woodland pine forest of Aleppo pine. You won’t find a whole stand of trees like it anywhere in the world, he says, and the main stand of this Aleppo pine is on Mount Carmel.

However, Izhaki remarks that, “It’s not only trees and wildlife that are important. There are also significant archeological findings there from ancient human settlements and of course, the local people who are there today.”

Izhaki believes that it is imperative to protect the biosphere, along with the Druze people who live within it. According to the terms set forth by UNESCO, communities living within a biosphere reserve must be committed to the limitations and norms that preserve the natural surroundings.

Living in a biosphere reserve

The Druze people in Israel, whose religion is said to have begun as an offshoot of Islam, live more or less in harmony with the rest of society. One of their major population centers is inside and borders the unique Carmel bioreserve. There are some problems related to encroaching on protected land for farming and some people even come to the forest to chop down old oaks for firewood, Izhaki relates.

“There is some conflict on Mount Carmel,” he says. “There are Druze villages inside the reserve. The conflict exists because they want to protect themselves against conservation efforts, and keep on managing their agriculture. One of the aims of the new center,” he adds, “is to try and find solutions to this conflict – ways for the local people to understand that the bioreserve can be for their own benefit and ways to help them make money.”

As part of the center’s programming, “We are going to develop an education system where we will go to high schools and elementary schools to teach the young people about it,” he says.

“Working with the local people is an opportunity for us to manage the bioreserve with them,” says Izhaki. This can start close to home at the university, where about 25% of the student body comes from minority groups, including Israeli Arabs and Israeli Druze.

Teaching pride in location

“Many of the Druze are at the university and through them we can make a change. They feel bad about their situation in Israel and feel as though they are second or third class citizens. Even though they serve in the Israeli army, they don’t feel they have equal rights,” says Izhaki.

He is hoping to help to educate the Druze in the bioreserve to be proud of their location and to be part of the effort to protect it, along with their unique cultural heritage. He hopes the two will go hand in hand.

Meanwhile, while as yet there are no opportunities for tourists or others to volunteer with the center and its activities, Izhaki says it’s a great place to come for a hike, as the many Israelis who enjoy the area on weekends and holidays have clearly discovered. Just don’t forget to pick up your litter.

(This story was first printed on ISRAEL21c - www.israel21c.org)