SPNI: Gov't not doing anything to protect open spaces

Report claims Israel will be the most crowded of the developed nations by 2020.

By EHUD ZION WALDOKS
Negev great 224.88 (photo credit: Ministry of Foreign Affairs)
Negev great 224.88
(photo credit: Ministry of Foreign Affairs)
The government's attitude toward protecting open spaces has declined over the past year, according to the annual report by SPNI's Open Landscape Institute (OLI), released Wednesday. The government itself did not pass any decisions that would aid the protection of open spaces, report author Iris Hahn wrote. Instead, the government passed a series of decisions supporting new settlements, lone farms, village life and developing the Negev and the Galilee, without discussion of the impact on open spaces. By 2020, Israel is expected to be the most crowded of the developed nations, according to the report. While settlements like Mirsham and two others were approved over the past year in the Lachish Region, the report did acknowledge that 2007 saw the defeat of serious development plans like the Safdie Plan for the expansion westward of Jerusalem and the plan to build a new settlement, Ramat Arbel, in the Galilee. However, the Land Authority passed 41 decisions in 2007, none of which even raised the issue of open spaces - even though most of the land the authority administers consists of open spaces such as nature reserves, the report noted. While there were several private bills in the Knesset on the issue, few reached the final stages of legislation, Hahn found. Moreover, there were also some private bills that tried to encourage activities that clearly affect open spaces, such as ones that encourage new settlements. In the courts, much harsh rhetoric was devoted to those who violated open space protection regulations, but fines remained very low - between NIS 10,000 and NIS 100,000. Such low fines, OLI charged, did nothing to deter developers from impinging on natural land. While 1,362 dunams of forest land were rezoned for other purposes, 84,000 dunams were declared nature reserves in 2007, including the 38,000-dunam Big Machtesh.