Israeli and Jordanian mayors declare joint war on houseflies
By Zafrir Rinat
Last update - 02:12 22/01/2007
David Litvinoff, the head of the Tamar Regional Council, has lived
most of his life at Kibbutz Ein Gedi, near the Dead Sea. But he made
his first visit to neighboring Jordan only last week. His main reasons
for finally taking the trip were the houseflies that plague residents
on both sides of the Dead Sea, and the realization that the
ever-shrinking sea is also a common problem.
Litvinoff and a delegation of regional council heads from the area met
in the Jordanian city of Safi with officials of the Jordan Valley
Authority and district governors. He and the head of the Jordan River
district, Ghaleb al-Shamaila, signed a memorandum of understanding to
work together against the flies and to establish a border crossing for
merchandise and workers on the Dead Sea's southern shore. They also
pledged to work to establish a regional peace park south of the Dead
Sea and to bring public pressure to bear on the issue of the Dead
Sea's desiccation.
The visit to Jordan was organized by the joint Israeli, Jordanian and
Palestinian Friends of the Earth-Middle East (FoEME). "It is a rare
event in which the representatives of so many Jordanian bodies meet
with Israelis, as political pressure usually prevents such meetings,"
FoEME's Israeli director, Gidon Bromberg, said. He stated that the
shared nature of the issues on the local level had created the level
of trust needed to reach the understandings.
"We've tried everything against the flies," Litvinoff said. "We
brought in specialists and used every kind of pesticide. The flies
continue to come from the Jordanian side. Some months, you can't even
sit outside."
The Israeli delegation came face to face with the source of the
problem in the fields near Safi: a fertilizer that attracts the winged
pests. "People here are poor, and they don't have money to buy
suitable fertilizers," said Dr. Farouk Arslan, a Jordanian ecologist
accompanying the group.
"This fertilizer gets wet and attracts the female flies, and that's
how the next generation develops," explained Shlomo Abadi, a pesticide
expert advising both sides.
The participants resolved to conduct a study on various methods of
decreasing the legions of flies. Bromberg and his Jordanian
counterpart, Munqeth Mehyar, met last week in Amman with the U.S.
ambassador to seek his help in establishing a compost facility that
will not attract flies.
The Jordanian side of the Dead Sea is in many respects a mirror image
of the Israeli side, complete with potash works and their evaporation
pools and a large number of hotels. The outstanding difference is that
the population on the Jordanian side is much larger, and poorer, than
on the Israeli side.
The Jordanians led their Israeli guests through a banana plantation in
which a huge sinkhole had opened, similar to the hundreds of such
holes on the Israeli side. The holes, which open without warning, are
created due to the drop in the level of the Dead Sea, which allows
fresh water to penetrate through salt layers beneath the surface,
dissolving them and causing the surface to collapse.
Ahmed Bukhri, a Jor dan Valley Authority engineer, said that there are
about 50 sinkholes in Jordanian fields. "We tried to block some of
them, but they reappear," he noted. As opposed to Kibbutz Ein Gedi,
which has stopped cultivation in the fields where the sinkholes
appeared, the Jordanian farmers appear to have no choice and continue
to work their fields, although there are sinkholes all around.
The shrinkage of the Dead Sea requires intervention at a higher level
than mayors on both sides, but the mayors are trying to raise
international awareness of the importance of preserving the area. At
their meeting, both sides agreed to continue their efforts to persuade
the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization
(UNESCO) to declare the Dead Sea basin a World Heritage Site.