A BASIS FOR HOPE
Nature preservation in Israel is a success story. Bushes and indigenous trees have begun to flourish, relieved of the pressures of overgrazing by goats. The wildflowers are back as never before. The gazelle count now reaches into the thousands.[198] There are even increases in numbers among Israel's thirty-four bat species after so many years of their being hunted down and gassed in their caves, unjustifiably maligned as enemies of agriculture.[199]
One could also paint a completely different picture. Only a handful of Arava gazelles survive south of Yotvata, and their numbers are dwin-dling.[200] Birds of prey, for example the griffon vulture, rarely nest in Israel. Sand foxes have almost disappeared outside of the Mitzpeh Ramon Crater.[201] Professors Yoram Yom-Tov and Heinrich Mendelssohn of Tel Aviv University, probably the country's most eminent zoologists, estimate that even after three decades of NRA's efforts, 40 percent of vertebrates have either suffered extinction or a substantial drop in numbers during the twentieth century.[202]
Nature preservation also requires constant vigilance: For instance, in 1993, reports surfaced of massive wildflower picking during the springtime by new Russian immigrants. The Ministry of Absorption hastily issued up-dated versions of the standard wildflower message, in foreign languages.[203] It is the new threats, coming from unanticipated directions, however, that are the scariest.
Motorization is one problem that does not receive sufficient atten-tion.[204] Habitats are crisscrossed by divided highways, which lock animals into small “fragmented” areas. Alon Galili has been raising this issue for almost twenty years: “Reptiles can't get across the roads. Rodents can't get over. Maybe a cat can under some circumstances. But on the whole, high-ways close animals in genetically.”[205] Presumably, one solution is to build a system of tunnels under the roadway. Except for gazelles, animals gen-erally like tunnels. They could be coaxed through, tempting them with water and food at the ends. It could make an exciting educational program. But such an initiative requires a commitment.[206]
Even more pernicious may be the vehicles that invade the reserves. All-terrain vehicles, jeeps, and motorbikes bring noise and leave unsightly tire marks everywhere. In the sensitive desert terrain, the signs can last for eons. It is not just a question of aesthetics. The ten thousand 4 4 vehicles
Another new scourge for wildlife has emerged in the form of Thai farmworkers, who have a penchant for trapping animals of all types to supplement their meals. What began as a joke about the Thai workers' willingness to eat anything that moves is suddenly not funny at all. Professor Yoram Yom-Tov reported to a Knesset committee that Thai traps had killed 90 percent of the Golan Heights' gazelle population, which is now on the verge of disappearing.[208]
In 1992 the NRA commissioned an independent review of the condition of the southern reserves.[209] The picture painted by Menahem Abadi was pathetic. Abadi described personnel constraints that made attempts to po-lice the illegal vehicles laughable. Pirate contractors pilfered rocks, sand, and trees. Concomitantly, the pressure from military maneuvers grew more acute as West Bank and Golan firing ranges moved south in antici-pation of geopolitical contraction.[210] Then there were the problems of water and electricity lines, mining concessions, and seismic tests, all of which required roads and infrastructure. And human settlements contin-ued to expand.
Abadi's report saw no alternative for the NRA but to abandon 60 per-cent of the Negev reserve areas and regroup. Feedback by area rangers sug-gests that the report was both too harsh in its generalizations and too defeatist in its recommendations.[211] Yet the problems raised are very real and—without major adjustments—will only get worse. Personnel justifi-ably gripe that the direct investment in nature reserves in countries such as England far exceeds that in Israel, even though the other countries have less to preserve.[212] Many of the northern reserves, such as the lovely Habonim Coastal Park, are too small to be able to hire a resident ranger. These small gems of nature can rapidly turn into garbage dumps, owing to seemingly benign neglect: The NRA continues to plod ahead, preparing the groundwork for the declaration of an additional hundred reserves. However, if the Authority is unable to manage its existing lands success-fully, it seems a futile exercise.
International coordination may offer the greatest opportunity for ex-panding wildlife habitat. Moreover, preservation itself can facilitate interna-tional cooperation. Indeed, nature helped resolve a deadlock that threatened to destroy the peace negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians. The bone of contention was whether an Israeli interim withdrawal from the West Bank should be 10 or 13 percent.[213] The compromise position set forward in the Wye River Memorandum in November 1998 held that a disputed 3 percent
Wildlife management will never really succeed without a regional strategy. For years Amotz Zahavi has spoken of a binational biosphere park connecting Jordan's Dana and Israel's Shizaf reserves. The Sinai remains largely uninhabited, and leopards may thrive there. Peace negotiations with Jordan have included talk of peace parks, especially what would be billed as “the lowest park on earth,” in the Dead Sea region. There are also partners with whom to work.[214] On the Jordanian side, the Royal Society for the Conservation of Nature is particularly competent. As a member-ship organization and manager of Jordan's nature reserves system, it is a combination of SPNI and NRA—but smaller than either.[215] Their educa-tional efforts are both diligent and innovative, but they too have a huge task before them. The gaps between the countries are more than political.
Reuven Hefner is the NRA expert on wolves today, much as Giora Ilani used to be for leopards. By collaring them with transmitters he has discov-ered that Israel's desert wolves are nomads and can move as much as forty kilometers in one night in search of food. Many of his wolves cross the bor-der into Jordan and can be followed only by satellite tracking. (As almost all the Arava sand dunes in Israel have been mined for construction, Jordan will continue to have more to offer them than Israel does.) For the wolves, however, it is often a one-way trip. Jordanian colleagues returned three transmitter collars that were taken off wolves shot after crossing the bor-der.[216] Hefner reports that although predators avoid humans in Jordan, hyenas, once in Israel, are not at all afraid of vehicles, and wolves somehow have also learned that they are safe within the Green Line.
If the wolves and the hyenas can sense a difference, then Israel must be doing something right. One feels it amidst the quiet of a reserve when a particularly beautiful flower catches the eye or a herd of ibex scrambles over the rocks. Before long twenty million people will be squeezed in between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea. Whether this insatiable species of ours will find a way to accommodate the other 2600 types of plants and 500 types of animals that also call Israel home remains an open question. If there is any basis for hoping that the answer will be in the affirmative, Israel's Nature and National Parks Authority deserves the credit. It got the country off to a very good start.