Environmentalists Raise Awareness on Deforestation in Palestinian Areas
The World Council of Churches is
working with environmentalists in Jordan and the region on a campaign to
stop Israel from uprooting trees in Palestinian areas
A few days after the world's largest non-Catholic church
organisation announced it would take “serious measures” against companies
that support the building of the separation wall in the occupied
territories, an activist working for the council delivered a lecture in
Amman to raise awareness on “Israeli colonial construction activities
causing deforestation in Palestinian areas.”
Another report on the same event: Members and friends of the Arab
Group for the Protection of Nature carefully listen This is the private homepage of
Disclaimer: I have been
active from Dec. 2004 to Feb. 2005 for Evangelisches Missionswerk in
Südwestdeutschland (EMS) as an Ecumenical Accompanier serving on the World Council of Churches' (WCC) Ecumenical Accompaniment Programme in Palestine
and Israel (EAPPI). The views contained herein are personal and do not
necessarily reflect those of my employer EMS or the WCC. If you would like publish the
information contained here or disseminate further, please first contact the
EAPPI Communications Officer and Managing Director (eappi-co@jrol.com) for permission. Thank
you.
by Rami Abdelrahman, The Jordan
Times, Feb. 28, 2005
“The Israeli
authorities say they do it for security reasons, as they build the
separation wall inside Arab territories,” German environmental activist and
long-time bicyclist, Chris Gocke, said.
Gocke, who works as the
council's “Ecumenical Accompanier in Palestine and Israel” with the local
community in the occupied village of Jayyous, said Palestinian farmers are
not compensated by the Israeli authorities for the loss of their trees.
“Palestinians who sell their land to Israelis, and those who receive
any kind of compensation from Israeli authorities are frowned at in the
Palestinian community... not that Israel provides any compensation,” he said
during the lecture, designed to raise money to plant new trees in
Palestinian areas.
According to the organisers of the lecture in
Jordan, the Arab Group for the Protection of Nature, Israel is uprooting an
average of 1 tree per minute in Palestinian areas, with these trees
constituting an “important source sustaining livelihoods of Palestinians.”
The total number of trees uprooted by Israeli construction between 2001 and
2003 is estimated 1.1 million.
These includes 263,000 olive trees,
356,000 citrus trees, 113,000 forest trees, 69,000 stone fruit trees, 51,000
grape vines, 18,000 banana trees, 23,000 palm trees and 251,471 other kinds
of trees.
