Mapping Palestine’s Environmental Civil Society – The Good, the Bad and the Uncooperative

A study mapping the environmental actors in Palestine shows a desperate lack of co-operation between organisations and donors keen to play it safe with ‘practical projects’

The lovely people at Heinrich Böll Stiftung had done something that I have been procrastinating about for almost lifetime (well, not quite a lifetime but a good couple of years at least). They have mapped out the important actors and organisations on the environmental scene in Palestine. Exciting, right!? They have painstakingly gone through all those websites, NGOs and institutes with an environmental focus to bring us a clear image of the state of the environmental movement in Palestine. They found that out of 2,245 NGOs registered in the oPt only 104 were environmentally-focused and of these, just 56 were actually still active. More juicy details after the jump.

The Facts on Green Palestine

– 104 registered environmental civil society organisation in the West Bank and Gaza

– 56 civil society organisations are actually still active

– Over 70% of environmental civil society organisations feel that their relationship with other organisations is competitive rather than co-operative

– Limited funding and efforts to raise their grassroots presence are two main reasons for the competitiveness between organisations

– 8 key organisations in Palestine based on their size, the variety of programmes implemented and geographic range:

Most organisations complained that international donors attempted to remain neutral by focusing in practical action and lacked the political will to enforce real changes by addressing Palestinians’ rights to natural resources. As such many organisations felt their projects were simply ‘coping mechanisms’. Even so, the relationship between NGOs and funders was generally described as co-operative if highly dependent.

: For the full article and to find out the top 9 key green organisations in Palestine go to GreenProphet.com

: Palestine (Photo credit: Squirmelia)

Related articles

• Organic Farming Boom in Palestine (greenprophet.com)
• Without A Strong Civil Society, Middle East Environment Has No Chance (Op-Ed) (arwafreelance.com)

Mario Cucinella: Interview With Gaza’s Green School Architect

I speak to Mario Cucinella the architect behind Gaza’s eco schools about building under conflict, water, education and bringing hope to a desperate region

Early 2013 will see the launch of a green school which will collect rainwater and regulate internal temperature using thermal technologies. Whilst such a project would not be noteworthy in Europe, this project is coming to the energy-scarce, water-poor and conflict-ridden region of the Gaza Strip. Constructing a green building in such a region definitely comes with a whole cache of problems- it also comes with a whole load of benefits. Building green schools that save water and reduce the amount of energy needed offers huge benefits to the people of Gaza. I caught up with Mario Cucincella, the architect behind the project to find out more.

Aburawa: Looking back at the profile of your work, most of the projects you are involved in are based in Italy. How did you get involved in the scheme to bring eco schools to Gaza?

Cucinella: I got involved in this project as I was invited to a conference by the Italian government which was about the future of Palestine and how a green economy could help Palestine’s economy and encourage development. At that meeting I met with UNRWA which is the UN organisation for Palestinian refugees and we talked about presenting a project about the green buildings I had worked on in the last couple of years as they were interested in the integration between green issues and architecture.

They took me to visit refugee camps and we went to Gaza to see the schools and so I proposed to them an idea of building a different quality of school. I mean, UNRWA builds a lot of schools as they are in charge of education and health and social problems- so they build schools, hospitals and lots of other things- and there was a big programme to build one hundred schools in Gaza and they were really interested in a new style or standard of building. Well, these things grow very fast and they were excited about my proposals and I guess, here we are.

Aburawa: There has been lots of press attention around the concept of green schools- could you tell us about some of the green features of the Gaza schools?

Cucinella: Well as you know, Gaza has a real issue with access to lots of resources. So for example, water is really polluted and 40% of the population still don’t have access to potable water. There’s also significant energy blackout and so that does affect how you can run schools and hospitals. The first idea was to collect rainwater as they don’t collect rainwater and in Gaza there are between 100-600mm of water a square a year- which is not lot but it’s still free water. They also don’t recycle water so the principle is to be able to collect maximum water for the school.

The other issue is that the schools are very low quality and they are not suited to their environment. In the summer the buildings are very hot and it’s hard for children to focus on their studies when it’s 38 degrees in the classroom. So another important feature is creating a sufficient thermal mass so that energy is stored and temperature can be better regulated. These two are not very complex principles but when you put them together you get something quite special which can really improve the people’s quality of life. And that was the agenda behind these buildings.

In Gaza it is notoriously difficult to construct buildings as there are issues around the ability to bring in materials due to the blockade. How will you be working around these restrictions to make sure the schools are built?

Green Prophet: The Place of Politics in the Middle East’s Environment

I write about  the never-ending battle I have with myself when I’m writing on environmental issues in the Middle East about whether politics should be at the centre of my reporting or not…

A couple of weeks ago, Green Prophet reported on the news that Israelis and Palestinians were working together to build a restorative eco-park. It was a relatively feel-good piece showing that despite the political conflict, joint projects could be useful in building bridges between the two nations. One commentator, however, felt that our coverage was politically naïve.

H.Shaka remarked: “I appreciate that GP is trying to report on ‘green’ in the whole Middle East, including both Israel and the Arab world, and I have come to see this as a step in the right direction. However, given the strong political drivers in the region, I think GP should aim to be much more politically informed and balanced if it wishes to gain the respect of its readers, at least in the Arab world.”

From me personally, the comment struck a chord. I can see why the commentator would prefer that politics play a bigger role in the way we see green initiatives in the region. I am the first to admit that green campaigners can be a little idealistic about joint Israeli and Palestinian projects, and tend to ignore their political downsides.

Al Jazeera: Can water end the Arab-Israeli conflict?

Could solving the water crisis in Israel and Palestine also help resolve the entrenched occupation and conflict? By Arwa Aburawa

Israeli officials destroy a water storage facility used by Palestinian farmers outside the West Bank village of Yatta, near the Israeli settlement of Sosia, in early June [EPA]

Around three weeks ago on a late Tuesday morning, Israeli soldiers armed with a truck and a digger entered the Palestinian village of Amniyr and destroyed nine water tanks. One week later, Israeli forces demolished water wells and water pumps in the villages of Al-Nasaryah, Al-Akrabanyah and Beit Hassan in the Jordan Valley. In Bethlehem, a severe water shortage have led to riots in refugee camps and forced hoteliers to pay over the odds for water just to stop tourists from leaving.

Palestinians insist that the Israeli occupation means that they are consistently denied their water rights which is why they have to live on 50 litres of water a day while Israeli settlers enjoy the luxury of 280 litres. Clearly, water is at the heart of the Israel-Palestine conflict, but commentators are now insisting that shared water problems could help motivate joint action and better co-operation between both sides, which could in turn help end the conflict.

“It’s a shame that water is being used as a form of collective punishment when it could be used to build trust and to help each side recognise that the other is a human being with water rights,” says Nader Al-Khateeb, the Palestinian director of the environmental NGO Friends of the Earth Middle East (FoEME).

Book Review- Shocked and Awed: How the War on Terror and Jihad have Changed the English Language

Fred Halliday, who died aged 64 in April 2010, wrote widely on many subjects related to the Middle East as well as the Muslim community in the UK, but Shocked and Awed is quite different to his other books. In fact, it’s not really a book but a political dictionary of words, turns of phrases and made up terminology which the general public were exposed to in the aftermath of 9/11 and the subsequent conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. Arranged into twelve chapters, the book studies words that have entered our vocabulary, their meaning, their origins but also- and this is the important bit- they way they influence the way we think and subsequently act. As Halliday reminds us “those who seek to control events, people and their minds also seek to control language.”

The one thing that surprised me about this book was that although the chapters were simply a collection of words which were examined in depth, it was still a really engaging read. As the chapters are short you don’t need to read every entry and you are given a lot more freedom as a reader to dip in and out of the book without losing your thread. Even more surprising was although the chapters didn’t have conclusions, after reading a collection of entries you are left with a clear impression of what words must have enabled (usually war and terror) and how words are so skilfully manipulated by politicians.

See full book review at the Friends of Al Aqsa website.

The easiest way to get to Gaza?? Join the Ultimate Mission to Israel…!!

Travelling to Palestine and Israel is a pretty amazing experience..it’s something that will stay with me for sometime. The people, the conflict- all of it. I used to think it would be pretty impossible to travel to the country and to ‘miss’ the fact that something was oh so very wrong. But if you never leave Israel this would be a whole lot more likely to happen. It would also be very possible if you decide to take the “Ultimate Mission to Israel”

Do you want to ‘observe a trial of Hamas terrorists in an IDF military court‘?
What about ‘first hand tours of the Lebanese front-line military positions and the Gaza border check-points’?
How would you like ‘briefings by Mossad officials and commanders of the Shin Bet’?
What does a ‘live exhibition of penetration raids in Arab territory’ sound like to you?

Fun?!?!? Well, all this is possible if you take part of an intensive eight day exploration of Israel’s struggle for survival and security in the Middle East today!!

I shit you not…

Fears for the children of Gaza

January 2009

Friends of Al-Aqsa Newspaper

by Arwa Aburawa

As the attack on the Gaza Strip continues, a Palestinian human rights organisation has warned of the immediate danger to children being targeted and killed by Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF). The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights states in its latest report that, “If the Tahdiya (ceasefire/calming) is renounced by either side and the hostilities resume, then children living in the Gaza Strip will immediately be once more at risk of being targeted and killed by the IOF.”

Conflict first erupted in the Gaza Strip on November 4, when Israeli forces killed six Palestinians in a raid. Ongoing retaliatory attacks between the two sides raised concerns that the ceasefire agreement would either disintegrate ahead of its expiry or a new agreement would not be reached. The heightened blockade on Gaza, put in place at the beginning of the hostilities also attracted criticism from humanitarian organisation due to rapidly dwindling food, fuel and medical supplies. A report by the International Committee of the Red Cross revealed that the blockade had led to a steady rise in chronic malnutrition among the 1.5 million people living in the Gaza Strip.

Speak up for Gaza

In 60 years of conflict, it is not often that shock reverberates so deeply amongst the international community.

After years of occupation, illegal Israeli settlements, theft of land and vital resources, house demolitions, the construction of an illegal Apartheid wall, the brutal blockade of Gaza it seemed that we had all become subdued by a steady ebb and flow of violence directed against the Palestinians.

Yet this Saturday, Israel launched a deadly attack against the Palestinians of Gaza which can never be forgotten. “Operation Cast Lead” began a deadly assault on a siege-crippled people and has already been declared as the bloodiest day in all sixty years of conflict. The death toll on the first day climbed from 200 deaths and hundreds injured to 360 killed and at least 1,000 injured- the military assault continues for the fourth day with a threat from Israel that the onslaught in Gaza could last for weeks.

Rather than condemning this blatant Israeli brutality, US policy makers seem to weaving webs of utter lies and contradiction- basically giving Israel their implicit support.

Rice, the US Secretary of State declared that:“The United States strongly condemns the repeated rocket and mortar attacks against Israel and holds Hamas responsible for breaking the cease-fire and for the renewal of violence in Gaza,”

White House spokesman Gordon Johndroe also echoed:“The United States understands that Israel needs to take actions to defend itself,”

“In order for the violence to stop, Hamas must stop firing rockets into Israel and agree to respect a sustainable and durable ceasefire.”

And Obama? Well, he was ‘monitoring’ the situation…

All blame was therefore neatly placed on Hamas, as if they had gone round killing the Palestinians themselves.. Now, I’m no huge fan but I’m pretty sure that’s not what happened- so WHY isn’t the UK and US directly condemning Israel?

Another thing, Johann Hari of the Independent states that Hamas has made diplomatic moves which have either been forgotten or simply ignored:

“Before it falls down the memory hole, we should remember that last week, Hamas offered a ceasefire in return for basic and achievable compromises. Don’t take my word for it. According to the Israeli press, Yuval Diskin, the current head of the Israeli security service Shin Bet, “told the Israeli cabinet [on 23 December] that Hamas is interested in continuing the truce, but wants to improve its terms.” Diskin explained that Hamas was requesting two things: an end to the blockade, and an Israeli ceasefire on the West Bank. The cabinet – high with election fever and eager to appear tough – rejected these terms.”

If our government’s have let us down with their pathetic attempts to stop these attacks on Palestinians, then the protesters and demonstrators have really spoken. Across the world, people have taken to the streets chanting protests and showing solidarity for the Palestinian people. Here in Manchester, an emergency protest was called outside the BBC on Oxford Road (Sunday 28^th at 1pm) to object to the attacks on Gaza which was attended by approximately 400 people. Vigils are also being held there for every day that the conflict continues…