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Environmentalists Gaining
In A Tough Uphill Battle
JAMES D. BESSER
Washington Correspondent
y
av Sagi's career is a
kind of good-news-bad-
news story. The good
news is that he has helped
create the Society for the Pro-
tection of Nature in Israel, one
of the most active and widely
supported environmental
movements in the world.
At present, more than 10 per-
cent of Israel's population
belong to SPNI, a proportion
that would make the leaders of
any of America's top environ-
mental groups green with envy.
Among SPNI's achievements
are the preservation of a
number of species unique to the
Middle East and a few that can
be found only in Israel.
The bad news is this: en-
vironmentally speaking, Israel
still has a long way to go.
Security needs often consume
environmentally vulnerable
areas and the country's
geography offers even less; in
this little sliver of land, the
pressure for new roads, farms,
and industries is relentless.
Sagi, a ruddy, outdoorsy man
who looks like he belongs in a
poster advertising granola or
hiking boots, has taken the
traditional Jewish longing for
the land of Israel one step fur-
ther. It's not only the concept
of Israel that tugs at his soul,
but the actual land — the scrub
forest, the desolate stretches of
desert, the precious trickles
that pass for rivers and the tiny
living things that only a
biologist could love.
This living ecosystem, he
suggests, is as important to the
idea of Zionism as the religious
imagery that has captured the
imagination of so many genera-
tions of Jews.
The Society was created in
the early 50s in response to the
rapid and largely unplanned
development of the new state.
"From the beginning, we
have been involved in several
areas," says to Sagi, a biologist
by training and an Israeli by
birth. "First is nature conserva-
tion; this was the emphasis at
the very beginning. The second
is field education, which is now
our main activity. This is very
important; awareness of nature
has always been very low in
Israel. So we teach about
nature by taking people out to
the field. We've found that this
is the best way to develop a
conservation awareness; once
people have been out in the
field, once they have been close
to nature, it becomes very easy
to convince them of the impor-
tance of conservation."
Currently, SPNI maintains a
network of 26 nature centers
throughout Israel. Every year,
more than a half million people
pass through the centers, at-
tend seminars, and take part in
Society-sponsored field trips.
Not surprisingly, these people
then provide a political base for
the Society's various cam-
paigns, including their ongoing
fight for more designated
wildlife areas and for tougher
laws regulating development.
Sagi has worked with the
group for 23 years, first as a
ranger and field guide, later as
director of one of the group's
Field Centers. For the past ten
years he has-served as SPNI's
Secretary General. He spent
the last year in the United
States on a fellowship to study
the environmental movement
here and to update his
knowledge of the interrelated
sciences that make up the field
of ecology.
He has waged numerous bat-
tles in the halls of the Knesset,
but he seems like the most un-
political of men. He appears to
lose interest in questions about
the complexities of environ-
mental politics in Israel, but he
can talk indefinitely and
animatedly about an endan-
gered fish, or a desolate patch
of scrub forest outside
Jerusalem.
Israel, he says, is not a coun-
try that took easily to the en-
vironmental movement. "At
first, people came to Israel from
all over the world because they
wanted change. They came to
build settlements and roads
and cities; this was the attitude
that shaped the early years. In-
novation was very important,
and progress, and a knowledge
of high-tech things. Iladitional-
ly, it has been almost un-
patriotic to speak of - limiting
development, or preserving
wilderness areas:'
From the earliest days of the
Zionist movement, he says,
there was a strong emphasis on
rebuilding the country, not just
re-inhabiting it. The land, he
argues, was viewed as a raw
material to be shaped and rear-
ranged by the new settlers, not
as an integral part of the
heritage of Israel.
The desert was made to
bloom, and cities to house the
ingathering population shot up
like weeds. Even before In-
dependence, Israel became
known for its agricultural set-
tlements — most of which were
carved out of the uniquely Mid-
dle Eastern wilderness, a
fragile ecosystem in spite of its
harshness.
"You have to remember that
all of Israel is equal in area to
about three Yellowstone Parks,"
he says. "In that area, we have
major cities, and vast agricul-
tural developments — and a
large military presence, with
the whole infrastructure that it
requires. This is a very difficult
thing for us to work with."
But the automatic deferring
to military needs, he says, is
slowly disappearing. "Twenty
or thirty years ago, nobody
would have dared really say
something against military
construction. If an army of-
ficial said a project was impor-
tant, that was that. This is
changing. About eight years
ago, in a kind of landmark, the
Society held a 'hiking demon-
stration' to protest military
construction in a nature
preserve in the Galilee. About
6000 people came."
A second major problem is
water. "Obviously, Israel is a
very dry country. Most of the
rivers and streams have been
tapped in pipes. The few that
have been left — including
"People don't
realize that in an
environmental
sense, Israel is
a very diverse land."
stretches of the upper Jordan
— are still threatened by water
and energy projects."
Israel, like any other
developed country, also faces
the problems of pesticides and
toxic chemicals. In the past few
years, Sagi says, the Knesset
has started taking steps to
enact protective legislation.
"But we have a long way to go.
In this area, we are well behind
the United States."
A consistent problem for
Sagi and his group is tiptoeing
through the minefields of
Israeli politics, a terrain more
forbidding than most deserts
they seek to protect. "We are
completely nonpartisan," he
says. "Sometimes, various
sides in political debates want
to use us — and we may have
to reject their support!'
In many ways, Sagi and his
colleagues are attempting to
redefine Zionism — or at least
to place it in a slightly different
context. The longing for Israel
that was a stout thread run-
ning through the many genera-
tions of the Diaspora, he
argues, was based on the
mythology of Biblical Israel,
the idea of redeeming the "land
of milk and honey" described in
the ancient texts.
But to keep that spark alive
in today's world, where Israel is
an accomplished fact and the
mythology is running headlong
into the realities of the modern
world, it will take a new and
more mature connection to the
land.