1. Interview with Avinoam Finkleman, October 28, 2001.

2. Giora Ilani,Zoogeographical, Ecological Survey of Predators, in Israel, the Golan, Judea and Samaria, and Sinai (Jerusalem: Nature Reserve Authority, November 1979), pp. 125–128.

3. H. B. Tristam, “The Land of Israel,” in A Journal of Travels in Palestine (London: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, 1866), as quoted in Giora Ilani,op. cit.

4. Yoram Yom-Tov and Heinrich Mendelssohn, “Altered Landscapes,” Eretz Magazine (November 1995): 52.

5. Interview with Azariah Alon, Beit ha-Shita, September 15, 1997.

6. Shoshana Gabbay, “Human Activity and Wildlife Protection: Conflicts and Challenges,”Israel Environmental Bulletin 20, no. 1 (1997): 15–16.

7. R. Nathan, U. Safriel, and H. Shirihai, “Extinction and Vulnerability to Extinction at Distribution Peripheries: An Analysis of the Israeli Breeding Fauna,Israel Journal of Zoology 42 (1996): pp. 361–383.

8. Uzi Paz,Eretz ha-Tsvi v'ha-Yael (Land of the Gazelle and the Ibex),I (Givataim: Masada, 1981).

9. Moshe Sneh, in Divrei ha-Knesset, December 19, 1962, p. 469.

10. Theodor Herzl, “The Jewish State,” in The Zionist Idea, ed. Arthur Hertzberg (Athenum, New York: Temple, 1981), p. 221.

11. Reuven Yosef and Rony Malka, “Avian Conservation in Israel,” un-published manuscript, 1998.

12. Tal Shavit, “All-Terrain Vehicles on You Israel,”Maariv, June 18, 1995.

13. Yom-Tov and Mendelssohn,op. cit., p. 57.

14. Uzi Paz, personal communication, November 11, 1998.

15. Heinrich Mendelssohn, “Nature Protection in Israel,”Biosphera 72, no. 3 (1972): 3.

16. Interview with Uzi Paz, Ramat Efal, September 14, 1997.

17. Paz,op. cit., p. 42.

18. Interview with Alon Galili, Sdeh Boqer, January 3, 1998.

19. Ibid.

20. Ibid.

21. Paz,op. cit., p. 70.

22. Mendelssohn,op. cit., p. 4.

23. Benny Shalmon, personal communication, July 13, 1998.

24. Uzi Paz, “Nature Preservation in Israel,” in The Plants and Animals of the Land of Israel, ed. Azariah Alon (Tel Aviv: Ministry of Defense Press, 1990), pp. 71–72.

25. Interview with Uzi Paz, Ramat Efal, September 14, 1997.

26. Mendelssohn,op cit., p. 3.

27. Sefer Chokim, 1956, p. 10.

28. Iris Millner, “The Rabbit's Foot,”Ha-Aretz, August 22, 1998.

29. Interview with Uzi Paz, Ramat Efal, September 14, 1997.

30. Interview with Reuven Ortal, January 13, 1998.

31. Uzi Paz, “Thus It Began,”Teva v'Aretz 264 (1994): 62.

32. Ibid.

33. Paz,Eretz ha-Tsvi, I, p. 43.

34. Paz, “Nature Preservation in Israel,” p. 70.

35. Paz,Eretz ha-Tsvi, I, p. 41.

36. Ofer Regev,Forty Years of Blossoming (Tel Aviv: Society for the Protection of Nature in Israel, 1993).

37. Ibid.

38. Interview with Uzi Paz, Ramat Efal, September 14, 1997.

39. David Ben-Gurion, Knesset debate,Divrei ha-Knesset, December 3, 1962, p. 331.

40. Interview with Uzi Paz, Ramat Efal, September 14, 1997.

41. Paz, “Thus It Began,” p. 62.

42. Proposed law, National Parks and Nature Reserves Laws, 1962.

43. Yosef Weitz, “To Sit Narrowly—On Landscapes and Nature Reserves,” speech from Weitz's JNF archives, dated second day of Hanukkah, 1963.

44. Interview with Uzi Paz, Ramat Efal, September 14, 1997.

45. Divrei ha-Knesset, December 3, 1962, p. 331.

46. Ibid., p. 413.

47. Ibid., p. 419.

48. Ibid., p. 473.

49. Ibid., p. 471.

50. In the Knesset, a bill must be read and voted on at least three times be-fore it becomes law. The bill goes back to committee for revisions between the first and second readings.

51. Paz,Eretz ha-Tsvi, I, p. 44.

52. Paz, “Thus It Began,” p. 63.

53. Divrei ha-Knesset, December 11, 1962, p. 413.

54. Uzi Paz, personal communication, November 27, 1998.

55. Interview with Uzi Paz, Ramat Efal, September 14, 1997.

56. Paz, “Thus It Began,” p. 63.

57. Ben-Gurion was suspicious of the rival Palmach's “barefoot” image as well as their leftist Mapam political ideology.

58. “The Zimmerman Prize for the Environment—Judges Explanation,” Biosphera G, no. 8 (1978): 2.

59. Regev,op. cit, p. 38.

60. An English officer who established a reconnaissance unit of Jews from the Yishuv prior to and during World War II.

61. Interview with Danny Yoffe, Tel Aviv, November 15, 1997.

62. Danny Yoffe, personal communication, November 17, 1998.

63. Interview with Danny Yoffe, Tel Aviv, November 15, 1997.

64. “In 1957 I was out observing gazelles for the annual count, and Yoffe showed up hunting. He argued that he loved animals, and he underwent a metamorphosis when he became head of the NRA. But before that, there were no limits for him.” Interview with Giora Ilani, Beer Sheva, September 9, 1997.

65. Interview with Batyah Paz, Ramat Efal, September 14, 1997.

66. Interview with Uzi Paz, Ramat Efal, September 14, 1997.

67. Paz, “Nature Preservation in Israel,” p. 73.

68. Interview with Danny Yoffe, Tel Aviv, November 15, 1997.

69. Iris Millner, “The Rabbit's Foot,”Ha-Aretz, August 22, 1998.

70. Interview with Leah Rabin, Tel Aviv, January 7, 1998.

71. Ibid.

72. Interview with Dan Perry, Tel Aviv, September 4, 1997.

73. Ibid.

74. National Parks, Nature Reserves, Memorial Sites and National Sites Law, 1992, sec. 22 and 34.

75. Paz,Eretz ha-Tsvi, I, p. 48.

76. Paz, “Nature Preservation in Israel,” p. 70.

77. Paz,Eretz ha-Tsvi, II, p. 101.

78. Ibid., p. 48.

79. Azariah Alon, “The Nature Reserve Authority,” in The Plants and Animals of the Land of Israel, ed. Azariah Alon (Tel Aviv: Ministry of Defense Press, 1990), p. 77.

80. Yom-Tov and Mendelssohn,op. cit., p. 58.

81. Interview with Dan Perry, Tel Aviv, September 4, 1997.

82. Ibid.

83. Interview with D'vora Ben Shaul, Rosh Pina, January 11, 1997.

84. Ibid.

85. Azariah Alon, “After the Establishment of the Nature Reserve Authority,” in The Plants and Animals of the Land of Israel, ed. Azariah Alon (Tel Aviv: Ministry of Defense Press, 1990), p. 74.

86. Interview with Dan Perry, Tel Aviv, September 4, 1997.

87. Ibid.

88. The Legislation of the State of Israel (Jerusalem, updated 1991), pp. 3045–3047.

89. SPNI, “Educating for Israel's Environment,” promotional pamphlet, 1994; see also Uzi Paz, “A Success Story,” in Eretz ha-Tsvi, I, pp. 76–80.

90. National Parks, Nature Reserves, Memorial Sites and National Sites Law, 1992, sec. 41(d).

91. Avraham Yoffe, “The Nature Reserve Authority,”Biosphera 72, no. 3 (1972): 6.

92. Paz,Eretz ha-Tsvi, I, pp. 78–80.

93. Interview with Reuven Ortal, January 13, 1998.

94. Uzi Paz, letter to Eitan Gidalizon, March 19, 1998.

95. Paz,Eretz ha-Tsvi, I, pp. 76–80.

96. Mendelssohn,op. cit., p. 4.

97. Paz,Eretz ha-Tsvi, I, p. 48.

98. Interview with Reuven Ortal, January 13, 1998.

99. Ibid.

100. Israel State Comptroller,Twenty-First Annual Report, Jerusalem, 1971, p. 236.

101. Paz,Eretz ha-Tsvi, I, p. 70.

102. Asaf Gotfeld, “The Judea and Samaria Team,”Yedion, no. 45 (1993): p. 6.

103. Dina Weinstein, “Danger: Rabies,”Eretz v' Teva 47 (1997): 79.

104. Oded Shani, personal communication, May 1997.

105. Interview with D'vora Ben Shaul, Rosh Pina, January 11, 1997.

106. Ibid.

107. “From the Activities of the Nature Reserve Authority,”Biosphera D(1974): 7.

108. Heinrich Mendelssohn, “The Impact of Pesticides on Bird Life in Israel,”ICBP Bulletin 11 (1972), pp. 75–104.

109. Interview with Aviva Rabinovich, Kibbutz Kabri, January 11, 1998.

110. Ibid.

111. Israel State Comptroller,op. cit., p. 237.

112. Interview with Danny Yoffe, Tel Aviv, November 15, 1997.

113. Interview with D'vora Ben Shaul, Rosh Pina, January 11, 1997.

114. Interview with Mordechai Ruach, Beit Zayit, September 9, 1997.

115. Interview with Reuven Ortal, January 13, 1998.

116. Israel State Comptroller,op. cit., pp. 234–242.

117. “Sea and Coasts,” in Environmental Quality in Israel,1979–80 (Jerusalem: Ministry of the Interior, 1981), p. 102; see also Y. Shlezenger, “Monitoring for Oil and Phosphates in the Eilat Coast,”Biosphera E, no. 10 (1979): 8–9.

118. Interview with Adir Shapira, Ramat Gan, December 18, 1997.

119. Interview with Ariyeh Cohen, Kibbutz Ketura, September 11, 1997.

120. Paz,Eretz ha-Tsvi, I, p. 341.

121. Interview with Leah Rabin, Tel Aviv, January 7, 1998; interview with Ariyeh Cohen, Kibbutz Ketura, September 11, 1997.

122. Interview with Dan Perry, Tel Aviv, September 4, 1997.

123. Interview with Alon Galili, Sdeh Boqer, January 3, 1998.

124. Interview with Dan Perry, Tel Aviv, September 4, 1997.

125. Interview with Alon Galili, Sdeh Boqer, January 3, 1998.

126. Interview with Reuven Ortal, January 13, 1998.

127. Interview with Lev Fishelson, Tel Aviv, September 28, 1997.

128. Aviva Rabinovich, personal communication, November 11, 1998.

129. Interview with Uri Safriel, Sdeh Boqer, January 6, 1998.

130. Gabbay,op. cit., pp. 6–7.

131. Daphna Levi, “Gazelle Count in the Arava, October 1991,”Yedion, (NRA, September 1992), pp. 39–44.

132. Interview with Uzi Paz, Ramat Efal, September 14, 1997.

133. Interview with Lev Fishelson, Tel Aviv, September 28, 1997.

134. Israel State Comptroller,op. cit., p. 238.

135. Hagai Agmon-Snir, “Nature Preservation as Nostalgic Greed,”Teva v'Aretz 260 (1993): 45.

136. Miriam Vamosh and Mike Livneh, “Effervescent Eden,”Eretz Magazine (October 1995): 52.

137. Edward Abbey, the conservation novelist and philosopher, felt other-wise, as passionately expressed in his collection of essays,Desert Solitaire: A Season in the Wilderness (New York: Ballantine, 1968).

138. National Parks, Nature Reserves, Memorial Sites and National Sites Law, 1992, sec. 37.

139. Interview with Dan Perry, Tel Aviv, September 4, 1997.

140. Shoshana Ashkenazi, “Biosphere Reserves—Their Meaning, Value in Nature Preservation, and Function,”Ecology and Environment 4, no. 3 (1996):

141. Interview with Dan Perry, Tel Aviv, September 4, 1997.

142. “Seven years after I had left the Authority, people who had criticized us approached me and said, ‘If it were not for you, there would not be a reserve left today.’” Interview with Adir Shapira, Ramat Gan, December 18, 1997.

143. Noam Meshi, personal communication, May 1997.

144. There is a disagreement among zoologists regarding the taxonomical breakdown of Middle Eastern leopards. Today the predominant opinion among experts is that all subspecies in the Middle East, from Arabia through Sinai-Israel to Turkey and Iran, are considered to belong to a single subspecies:Panthera par-dus saxicolor. Benny Shalmon, personal communication, July 13, 1998.

145. Ilani,op. cit., pp. 125–128.

146. David Heller and Azariah Alon, “Nature Researchers of the Land of Israel,” in The Plants and Animals of the Land of Israel, ed. Azariah Alon (Tel Aviv: Ministry of Defense Press, 1990), p. 57.

147. Tristam,op. cit., p. 128.

148. Ilani,op. cit.

149. Interview with Giori Ilani, Beer Sheva, September 9, 1997.

150. Interview with Danny Yoffe, Tel Aviv, November 15, 1997.

151. Interview with Giori Ilani, Beer Sheva, September 9, 1997.

152. Ibid.

153. Ibid.

154. Ilani,op. cit., p. 9.

155. Interview with Giori Ilani, Beer Sheva, September 9, 1997.

156. Interview with Danny Yoffe, Tel Aviv, November 15, 1997.

157. Amatzia Shochat, as quoted in Yehoshua Eliash, “Man and Leopard: Can the Two Live Together?”, unpublished honors paper, 2001, p. 72.

158. Interview with Giori Ilani, Beer Sheva, September 9, 1997.

159. Shmulik Shapira, “Notices from the Southern Region,”Yedion, (NRA) no. 28 (1986), p. 5.

160. For instance, in 1987 Ilani reported “Herod” mounting his mother, “Shlomzion.” Giora Ilani, “Fauna News,”Teva v'Aretz 31, no. 3 (December 1998): pp. 28–29.

161. Ariel Ben Avraham, “Desert of Leopards,”Teva v'Aretz 254 (March 1993): pp. 31–34.

162. Interview with Uzi Paz, Ramat Efal, September 14, 1997.

163. Interview with Lev Fishelson, Tel Aviv, September 28, 1997.

164. Benny Shalmon, personal communication, July 13, 1998.

165. Interview with Dan Perry, Tel Aviv, September 4, 1997.

166. David Quammen,The Song of the Dodo, Island Biogeography in an Age of Extinction (Touchstone: New York, 1997), pp. 512–519.

167. Gabbay,op. cit., p. 19.

168. Eitan Glickman, “Vulture Campaign,”Yediot Ahronot—24Hours, July 7, 1998, p. 10.

169. Ronen Tal, “A Leopard Who Came to the Movies,”Yediot Ahronot, December 23, 2001, p. 23.

170. Israel State Comptroller,op. cit., p. 236.

171. Interview with Alon Galili, Sdeh Boqer, January 3, 1998.

172. David Saltz, personal communication, June 14, 1998.

173. Ibid.

174. Yaakov Skolnik, “Back to Nature,”Eretz Magazine, December 1997, p. 41.

175. Bill Clark, “Desert Compatible,”Eretz Magazine, January 1995, p. 27.

176. Uzi Paz, “The Hai Bar Reserve,” in Eretz ha-Tsvi, II, pp. 337–339.

177. Interview with Ariyeh Cohen, Kibbutz Ketura, September 11, 1997.

178. Benny Shalmon, personal communication, July 13, 1998.

179. Interview with D'vora Ben Shaul, Rosh Pina, January 11, 1997.

180. Adnan Budieri, personal communication, June 1996.

181. Interview with Uri Safriel, Sdeh Boqer, January 6, 1998.

182. “If today I was asked to start setting up a Hai Bar, I would be against it. However, the Hai Bars already exist, and unless the reintroductions are car-ried out, the chances of them ever closing down would be very slim. There is now a long-range program accepted by the Authority that the Hai Bars will shut down in eight years. Another positive point is that these projects raise quite a bit of money and are flagship projects.” David Saltz, personal commu-nication, June 14, 1998.

183. Interview with Ariyeh Cohen, Kibbutz Ketura, September 9, 1997.

184. Ibid.

185. Interview with Giora Ilani, Beer Sheva, September 9, 1997.

186. Arje Cohen,The Pere Back in Nature (The Netherlands, Valenzuela, 1994).

187. Skolnik,op. cit., p. 45.

188. Shirli Bar David, personal communication, October 29, 1998.

189. Roni King, personal communication, January 10, 1997.

190. Barbara Sofer, “Israel's Wild Side,”Hadassah Magazine, 1990.

191. Interview with Yossi Sarid, Jerusalem, December 30, 1997.

192. Salah Tarif, who was the Chairman of the Interior and Environment Committee, is Druze. With his long history of displeasure with the NRA over the Mount Meron situation and no love lost for the new Minister of the Environment, Raful Eitan, he grandstanded but eventually gave in.

193. A. Sofer and R. Finkel,The Mitzpim in the Galilee: Goals,Achievements, Lessons (Rehovoth: Center for Rural and Urban Settlement, 1986).

194. Interview with Dan Perry, Tel Aviv, September 4, 1997.

195. Zafrir Rinat, “The Minister of Environment Delays Allocation of the Budget for the Nature and Parks Authority,”Ha-Aretz, October 26, 2001.

196. For instance, the Zipori National Park had three hundred dunams of breathtaking archaeological sites and sixteen thousand dunams of open spaces and indigenous forests that it did little to manage and monitor.

197. Interview with Aaron Vardi, Tel Aviv, December 3, 1998.

198. Levi,op. cit., pp. 39–44.

199. Orit Nevo, “Counting Bats,”Eretz v' Teva 47 (1997): 17.

200. Elli Elad, “The Departure of the Arava Gazelle,”Ha-Aretz, October 15, 1993.

201. Interview with Giora Ilani, Beer Sheva, September 9, 1997.

202. Yom-Tov and Mendelssohn,op. cit., p. 58.

203. Orit Nevo, “They Blossom and Are Picked,”Teva v' Aretz 256 (1993): p. 9.

204. Yom-Tov and Mendelssohn,op. cit., p. 57.

205. Interview with Alon Galili, Sdeh Boqer, January 3, 1998.

206. Ibid.

207. Zafrir Rinat, “Tire Tracks Scar Israel's Dunes,”Ha-Aretz, April 25, 2000, p. A5.

208. Gabi Baron, “Thais Have Destroyed 90% of the Gazelles in the Golan Heights,”Yediot Ahronot, April 6, 2000, p. 22.

209. Menahem Abadi, “Deterioration in the Southern Nature Reserves,” Yedion, no. 44 (1992): pp. 28–34.

210. Ibid.

211. Shmuel Yaakov, “As a Result of the Article,”Yedion, no. 44 (1992): p. 34.

212. Interview with Reuven Ortal, January 13, 1998.

213. Seffi Ben Yosef, “The Three Percent Problem, The Case of the Off-the-Record-Reserve,”Eretz Magazine (March 1999): pp. 21–27.

214. Zafrir Rinat, “Ibex without Borders,”Ha-Aretz, November 23, 1994.

215. Munir Adgham, “Non-Governmental Environmental Organizations in the Gulf of Aqaba-Bordering States: A Current Appraisal,”Protecting the Gulf of Aqaba: A Regional Environmental Challenge, ed. P. Warburg (Washington: Environmental Law Institute, 1993), pp. 479–489.

216. Yaakov Skolnik, “Running with the Pack,”Eretz Magazine, September 1996, pp. 28–30.