BY DIANE JOY SCHMIDT New Mexico Jewish Link Winter V. 52 #4

At a recent Hadassah Albuquerque get-together at the Village Pizza in Corrales, the talk turned to mice. With friends in Santa Fe, it was pack rats. Placitas is having a bad year for both. The word is, peanut butter seems to work best to bait snap-traps. Havahart cage traps are the most humane, if you don’t mind catching and releasing the occasional squirrel. A smelly detergent, Fabuloso, spritzed on tires and under the hood – the lavender fragrance is best – along with lights in reflectors under the car, works better than the expensive ultrasonic anti-rodent deterrent, which Santa Fe pack rats simply ignore. Everyone is suddenly finding chewed wires and nests in their automobile engines. The increase in rodents has another unintended consequence – more people across the state are putting out rodent poison, and more hawks and owls, who eat the rodents, are dying. 

But an innovative solution from Israel has just come to our local attention.The Society for the Protection of Nature in Israel (SPNI) is the oldest and largest non-profit for environmental protection and education, established more than 60 years ago there. In Santa Fe, Dan Pava, well-regarded urban planner who now sits on the Santa Fe Planning Commission, is the newest U.S. board member, and just hosted an SPNI team from Israel of famed pioneering ornithologist Dan Alon, Director of Conservation and Environmental Protection, and Jay Shofet, Director of Partnerships and Development. They spoke at the home of  David and Patricia Shulman, after first going on a nature walk at the Leonora Curtin preserve in La Cienega. Rabbi Paul Citrin, long-time SPNI board member, will host an Albuquerque gathering when they return in the spring of 2022.

Birds know no borders. In response to a question about how Americans might support SPNI despite current anti-Israel sentiment, Pava pointed to the very effective and cross-border pest control barn owl program, developed by their Professor Yossi Leshem. By placing nesting boxes in fields for owls and kestrels to control out-of-control rodent populations, they provide an alternative to harmful and expensive pesticides for farmers. The project has cross-border cooperation, and has been introduced to Jordanian and Palestinian farmers, after overcoming their cultural fear of barn owls who traditionally are seen as harbingers of evil spirits. 

This barn owl nesting boxes project could easily be introduced in New Mexico, where bat boxes have already been seen as an effective alternative to mosquito spraying, and awareness of the harmful effects of pesticides is growing. 

That is but one of hundreds of effective and innovative projects SPNI has undertaken in Israel. Israel is home to the many birds of the Bible. As it is said, “The voice of the turtle dove is heard in our land.” However, the turtle dove is now threatened, and they succeeded three years ago in making it illegal to hunt them. The enormous Griffon Vulture, whose wingspan is up to 9 feet, is the most mentioned animal in the Bible. But tragic news hit on this day, when nine of the only 200 known population in Israel were found poisoned. A farmer, using an illegal poison, had baited a goat to kill wolves attacking their herd. Alon was on the phone to Israel immediately in Santa Fe when he got the news.

Ornithologist Alon brought awareness thirty years ago to the problems caused by draining the swamps of Hula Lake in the 1950’s, when malaria there was rampant. But this caused unforeseen environmental damage. The dried dust run-off clogged rivers and most importantly, destroyed a critical habitat for the half-billion birds that migrate through Israel twice a year. Alon was able to initiate a major rewilding of the Hula Lake area, and, in this case working together with the Jewish National Fund, it has been restored to a wetland that serves the millions of migrating birds that come through Israel.

Israel is a crossroads for one of the largest annual bird migrations in the world. As SPNI explains, “Israel stands at the junction of a major migratory flyway, funneling hundreds of millions of birds from across Europe, Asia and Africa twice a year. Despite its small size, Israel is critical to these birds’ survival. Without its nice habitats these birds would not complete their grueling journeys across the desert belt of North Africa and the Arabian Peninsula.”

  Pava drove Alon and Shofet down to Albuquerque that night, where I caught up with them at a diner near the airport before they boarded a plane, going next to Texas, then on to Toronto and New York, and eventually back to Israel. When asked how Israel is faring in its ecological efforts, Alon pointed out first that Israel has much to be proud of, and said “Israel has one of the biggest proportions of nature reserve areas, 25% of Israel is a major reserve,” but that its growing population and development threatens key critical habitats. He is most excited to point to a recent success of the Society, also known NatureIsrael, with a new campaign, Start-up Nature. “In Israel last year, we managed to create new nature reserves, of maybe 50,000 acres (about 78 square miles), which is very impressive for Israel, in a country that has 9 million people and is about 8,000 square miles.

“With community support and integration of economic development for tourism, the government granted 4 million dollars for the establishment of these two new preserves. We are now needing to raise 11 million more to husband these reserves along to survive (long-term).” The sites already have visitor centers and viewing platforms. These sites were formerly fishponds for aquaculture, at two Kibbutzim, Ma’agan Michael on the coast between Tel Aviv and Haifa, and at Kfar Rupin in north-central Israel, and now need further remediation to restore native indigenous plants.

Already predators, insects and birds have returned. 

Pava points out that 2000 years ago, the Judeans knew how to practice dry-land agriculture that was sustainable, and where strictures that we read in the Bible now, like letting the land rest every 7 years, were the result of their indigenous knowledge base.

This is one arm of the next 3-year plan. Alon continued, “At the same time we work very hard with the planning system of Israel, to make sure that all the developing projects of Israel, if it’s housing, energy, that everything will be (designed to be) taking care of the environment.” Alon explained that they are establishing throughout Israel, “what we call ecological corridors, which allow animal to move between protected areas divided because of agriculture. This ecological code is now part of the Israeli planning system. This is a great achievement.”

While the Hula Lake project was eventually championed by the Jewish National Fund, the JNF campaign of planting forests is destroying the natural habitat. A cultural shift is necessary. As Shofet said frankly, “I now regret every tree I planted for my bar mitzvah.” Alon added, “These forests are worse than a road construction.” 

What is obvious today, is that clearing the naturally arid desert environment with bulldozers to plant forests of highly flammable European pine trees is not so smart. However, changing the culture of ‘greening Israel’ is a fight. As Alon put it, it’s in their DNA. But he is not shy of a fight. SPNI successfully sued the Jewish National Fund, and presented scientific papers to back up their case, so now JNF has to get permission from the government before planting.

Alon put it this way. “I want to say something. I think that there’s a message here. And the message is that Israel needs a new way of thinking about the environment. Firstly, it’s not anymore the old traditional way that people from abroad think of helping Israel. There are two ways we need to act in Israel. One, is to protect any important nature sites in Israel, under nature, reserve or national park or any thing like that. And the second is to find important sites that we can rewild, like fish ponds, and invest there. This is what we need to do today. Not planting more trees. Not creating all kinds of non-ecological parks. This is the way to go. So, I think that this is why we are here, to talk to people about the way we think Israel should go further with nature protection. And not only Israel. I mean, it’s Israel, but we are responsible for half a billion birds that pass through to us.” This critical migratory route links three continents. 

For much more information, google Nature Israel or type in WWW.NATUREISRAEL.ORG, to go to the American Society for the Protection of Nature in Israel website. They are known all over Israel for their field schools, where all Israeli children come to learn, and they also have very popular tours where visitors can come and stay in a range of comfortable accommodations and explore the extensive nature trails.