BREAKING NEWS

Tel Aviv passes plan to protect urban nature sites

For a place known as the “Big Orange,” Tel Aviv is set to go increasingly green as the municipality has approved a plan to a protect urban nature sites, joining Jerusalem as only the second Israeli city to do so.
The plan approved on Wednesday aims to protect nature sites within city boundaries and safeguard the environment during construction – a major concern since seemingly every street in town has a crane or crew at work.
The initiative is a joint effort between the city’s Local Building and Planning Committee and the Society for the Protection of Nature in Israel, and grew out of a 2012 survey that examined the ecological quality of 51 sites such as beaches, sand dunes, parks and rivers.
The most ecologically important places in the city are defined as the Tel Baruch Beach in the northern Ramat Aviv neighborhood and the Givat Aliya Beach in Jaffa, based on the variety of plants, unique species, level of preservation and connection to other sites in the area.
Other highly important sites are the cliffs just below the Tel Aviv Port that overlook the northern part of the beach, as well as the entire eastern part of Yarkon Park.