Haaretz
May 8, 2007
By Zafrir Rinat
Last week the future of the mineral water plant next to the Ein Gedi nature reserve was ensured. The Israel Nature and National Parks Protection Authority (INNPPA) signed an agreement with Kibbutz Ein Gedi, one of the owners of the plant, to make it possible for the kibbutz to use a large quantity of the water from the springs. In return, the kibbutz will supply the nature reserve with flood water that it pumps from the slopes of the streams in the region.
INNPPA officials are convinced the agreement will guarantee the future of the nature reserve and rehabilitate the slopes of Ein Gedi. However, scientists and environmentalists complain that the nature reserve has been sacrificed for the sake of a commercial project, that the authority that is supposed to preserve nature on behalf of the public anchored this as such in the agreement. Many believe this is a clear expression of the policy of foregoing the interests of preserving nature, which, they say, is characteristic of the period in which Eli Amitai served as INNPPA director general.
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Amitai is shortly due to complete a five-year stint in the post and the government will soon discuss a proposal from Environmental Affairs Minister Gideon Ezra to extend his tenure with the authority for an additional five years. This is a position which holds decisive importance since the INNPPA is responsible for almost one quarter of the area of the country. Green organizations and scientists involved in preserving nature have in the past been at odds with INNPPA directors, but they have never before so straightforwardly tried to prevent the extension of a director's term.
In recent days, the Society for the Protection of Nature in Israel (SPNI) and the Israel Union for Environmental Defense, have called on Ezra not to extend Amitai's term of office automatically and to consider setting up a professional committee to examine other candidates.
An end to free entry
The director of the union, Tzipi Iser Itzik, wrote in a letter to the minister that Amitai had brought about a gradual closing to the public of free entry to the country's nature reserves and parks, "without any clear criteria and out of a preference for economic considerations rather than considerations of preserving nature and heritage."
The director of the SPNI, Gershon Peleg, claimed that Amitai had favored a conciliatory policy of "give and take" with regard to declaring nature reserves and preserving them, had interfered in the decisions of professional bodies and had created bad relations with environmentalist groups.
Amitai is a former brigadier general in the Israel Defense Forces, as were his two predecessors, and was appointed to the position of director general by Tzachi Hanegbi when he was environment minister. Contrary to the complaints of some of his detractors - that he is not in the least bit interested in the preservation of nature - he is indeed extremely interested in the field for which he is responsible and works at a pace that exhausts some of his staff.
At the same time, there is no doubt that his views on how to act to preserve nature are problematic, however he consistently acts to enforce them. He does not hide his opinion that more emphasis must be put on developing attractions and various buildings in the reserves and the parks to attract visitors, and he also claims that, to this end, it is necessary to fence off many nature reserves and charge visitors fees.
In a tour he organized a few months ago, he chose to present as his most prominent achievements a suspension bridge in the Snir stream canyon (Banias) and the Oforiya museum at the Huleh Nature Reserve, where visitors can see the world of the animals and the migratory birds of the nature reserve. The SPNI believed the bridge was an affront to the unique canyon and tried to get the work on its construction stopped.
Dr. Uzi Paz, one of the most senior researchers into nature preservation in Israel, noted that the Oforiya was an impressive museum but that there was no justification for investing so much money in it at a time when it is difficult to maintain the nature reserve itself.
Another direction Amitai has persistently taken is his readiness to make concessions and exchange territory to achieve what he sees as the aims of the authority. Arrangements of this kind were made mainly with local authorities and kibbutzim. One striking example of this trend was Amitai's agreement to give up an area earmarked as a nature reserve in the Gilboa where a village was due to be set up, in return for the Bikat Beit She'an regional council's agreement to declare other, much larger, areas in the Gilboa as nature reserves.
Clashes over Carmel
"We have received in return a nature reserve that is much larger, in which we can ensure ecological continuity and the existence of a larger population of deer in the area," Amitai claimed. In this instance, he suffered a serious defeat. The planning authorities believed the establishment of a village would harm rare natural resources and were not prepared to allow its establishment.
Recently the INNPPA agreed to forego an area of the Carmel park for the Druzes' Carmel town and in this way make construction inside the confines of the park acceptable. On the face of it, this is an agreement that will permit coexistence between the town and the park and prevent further demands for annexation on the part of the town, but planning officials say the authority also planned to forego another area, in the Har Shokef region to give in to further demands by the town.
In a discussion of the Har Shokef plan, held by the Knesset's Interior and Environment Committee about six months ago, one of the representatives of the Carmel town, Khalil Halabi, said: "We shall not give up one grain of land, nothing will help you. In the same way we know how to fight for the country, we will fight for this, and believe you me, the country will have to think twice when we decide to do this."
Amitai took the threats seriously and tried to prevent a discussion of the plan in the national planning committee to reach a compromise with the authorities of the Carmel town.
In a letter to the environment minister, he wrote: "If a decision is reached in the national planning committee, I am very worried that matters will get out of hand, that the fabric we are trying to weave with the town and its residents with such a great investment in effort, will disintegrate before our eyes and that the sparks will fly, in more ways than one, and not merely in the Carmel."
"This is not the first time the authority was hesitant to protect areas that under its auspices according to the law, and this is because of threats to employ violence and to make good on these threats," says Prof. Yoram Yom Tov of Tel Aviv University, one of the most outspoken critics of Amitai.
"The reticence to protect areas of the nature reserves and national parks is very convenient for the politicians who wish to get the support of the Druze, and it is apparently one of the reasons why the environment minister is recommending that the government to extend Amitai's term of office. He gives in to demands instead of protecting nature."
"We tried to reach a compromise at Har Shokef so as to establish coexistence between the residents and the park," Amitai says. "When we were not successful, I decided that we would demand to annex the entire area of the plan while also being aware that this would create tension. It must be remembered that it is not the SPNI people or the scientists who have to face the threats and the hostile atmosphere and that the Interior Ministry does not act in places where there are confrontations. It is my people who have to be there, and therefore I try to reach solutions that are possible."
As for Ein Gedi, Amitai says the establishment of the mineral water plant was made possible by a decision of one of his predecessors and is a fait accompli.
"The agreement we have signed now will make it possible for the water to flow to the springs and will enable the rehabilitation of the natural habitat of the region.
If there was not enough water in the streams for the reserve, there would not have been additional water from the springs for the plant."
Amitai is convinced that in the past few years, nature preservation has been strengthened in Israel, and as proof of his contentions, he mentions the large number of reserves and parks whose legal status has been anchored in law.
According to his way of thinking, the authority has to do its best to influence the decisions of the government offices or the planning committees, but since it is a governmental body, it must accept them.
The role of the environmental organizations is to then continue the struggle and even to petition the courts.
The problem is that in numerous cases, these organizations found themselves struggling against decisions Amitai took without any government office or planning committee having persuaded him to do so.
One senior planning official, himself a civil servant, recently remarked with regard to Carmel that the INNPPA was not doing what it was obliged to do by law - to protect nature, but rather spent most of its time making concessions about protecting it.
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