All the Trees of the Forest: Israel's Woodlands from the Bible to the Present
All the Trees of the Forest: Israel's Woodlands from the Bible to the Present
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Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780300190700 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Yale University Press |
| Publication date: | 10/22/2013 |
| Series: | Yale Agrarian Studies Series |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| File size: | 6 MB |
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All the Trees of the Forest
ISRAEL'S WOODLANDS FROM THE BIBLE TO THE PRESENT
By ALON TAL
Yale UNIVERSITY PRESS
Copyright © 2013 Alon TalAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-300-18950-6
CHAPTER 1
Degradation and Restoration
For there is hope that a tree, once cut down, will sprout again. And that the tender branch will not come to an end. Though its roots may grow old in the soil, and its trunk seems to die in the ground; with the very scent of water, it will bud, and bring forth boughs like a plant.
—Job 14:7–9
Israel is unlike other countries. Not yet seventy years of age, it is at once a developing and a postindustrial nation. The state is a multicultural mishmash. Its citizens have immigrated from ninety nations, and thirty-three languages and dialects are spoken on its streets each day. Israel has the highest per capita concentration of daily newspapers, theater subscriptions, high-tech startups, drip irrigation systems, yeshivas, Facebook profiles, and armored tanks in the world. Relative to its population size, it leads the world in Nobel prizes, but also pays its teachers less and has more severe air pollution than most Western countries. The atypical is typical. Not surprisingly, its forests are also unique.
Israel's woodlands tell an extraordinary story. They carry the scars of relentless military invaders and past conquests. Most of the trees, however, are contemporary—an expression of recent national zeal to restore the woodlands of the Bible and make a harsh climate more hospitable. Many stands still show signs of ecological blunders. These rows of crowded, spindly, sticklike trees serve as reminders of earlier, misguided attempts to create timber plantations on barren, dry soils. Other forests thrive, living proof that human resourcefulness can craft natural successional processes that produce a fetching, vegetative mosaic. Here, the shade from contrasting tree types presides over a rich and blossoming understory that is more garden than thicket.
The foliage also reflects the country's exceptional location at the crossroads of three continents. Trees provide the botanical foundation for the myriad ecosystems that combine to make the country an internationally recognized biodiversity "hotspot." Israeli forests constitute an ongoing experiment in transforming desertified drylands and degraded soils into prosperous parks, rangelands, and ecosystems. They are the product of a forestry agency that has no government status, but is, in actual fact, a public corporation—the Jewish National Fund (JNF; or in Hebrew, Keren Kayemeth L'Yisrael)—which, technically, is owned by the Jewish people around the world. With so many committed stock holders, Israel's modest woodlands constitute an international concern. To make matters more complicated, the trees have been recruited by the region's competing political narratives, becoming part of the larger national conflict that has festered for over a century.
It might seem that Israel's forests are so small as to be irrelevant in the international discourse about global forestry programs. Today, the country's woodlands fill over 8 percent of the country's territory—but then, Israel is a tiny country. All told, its forests amount to little more than one hundred thousand hectares—about 1/60,000, of the wooded area on the planet-seemingly inconsequential.
Yet these trees and their history are worth considering. The chronicle of Israeli afforestation may be highly instructive to a world that seeks to restore its timberlands. Because it is such an extreme case, it offers a distinctive model, for better or for worse. To understand why Israeli woodlands and forestry experience matter, a few words about the global situation are in order.
No natural resource on the planet has been more affected by human activities than the earth's forests. Some eight thousand years ago, at the end of the pre-agricultural age, when there were just five million people on the globe, forests covered 6.2 billion hectares, or 47 percent of the land on the planet. Since then, a great deal has been lost.
Estimates of the actual dimensions of deforestation vary dramatically: National Geographic quotes one analysis that counts three-quarters of the original forests as missing. Other experts say that no more than 20 percent is lost. The 2005 UN–World Bank Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, with over a thousand participating scientists, is probably the most ambitious and reliable inventory of the planet's resources to date. It calculated that humans have destroyed some 40 percent of the earth's original forests. Modern technology, along with massive population growth during the twentieth century, accelerated the phenomenon dramatically—with half of historic deforestation taking place during the past hundred years. The precise figure ultimately depends on definitions of woodlands, baseline dates, and other arcane classifications. But even accepting the most positive projections, trees have paid a high price for the spectacular proliferation of the human species and the ongoing quest for human prosperity.
Despite the massive devastation, forests still cover 31 percent of the planet's land surface and the rate of destruction appears to be slowing. The UN Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) estimates that between the years 2000 and 2010 some 5.2 million hectares of forests were cut or burned. This is a staggeringly high figure, but it is 38 percent lower than the 8.3 million hectares lost during the previous decade. Such numbers are almost too enormous for mere mortals to grasp. Suffice it to say that, today, annual deforestation destroys a forested area the size of Costa Rica, while a decade ago there was a Poland-size annual loss.
If there is progress and reason for optimism, it is because many countries have finally come to understand that trees constitute a renewable resource. This has translated into new public policies and the launching of large-scale afforestation efforts. Associated gains, rather than any significant drop in old growth deforestation, are what offer a glimmer of hope. As the world begins to restore at least a portion of its devastated woodlands, questions of quality emerge. Ecological integrity is not only a function of quantity; rather, questions such as the following are germane: "How much land should be planted?" "What we should plant?" "Where we should plant?" "How we should plant?" "What ecosystem services can the new stands provide?" "How should we treat the surviving ecological systems on deforested or degraded lands?" These are not merely technical matters for foresters in the field, natural resource management wonks, economists, and tree huggers: they raise fascinating issues and ethical dilemmas.
Forests provide habitat for much of the world's wildlife. When considering the harmonious relationship between animals and trees, people may imagine deer munching on leaves, birds nesting on boughs, and possums hanging upside-down from branches (even as the last image is actually a myth). In fact, the primary contribution made by trees to wildlife may be indirect, through their nurturing of other smaller plants.
Forests are ecosystems. Diverse natural homes are created around the great organic pillars, which set the boundaries and establish the ecosystem character. (As children are often taught in grade school, eco actually comes from the Greek oikos, or "household.") Plants of every variety grow along the forest floor and even directly on trunks and branches of trees. They typically need less space to thrive than the bulkier trees do. It may take several hectares of land to ensure sufficient space for a sustainable population of trees in the wild, while a plant community might flourish in tiny openings no more than a square meter. This may explain why there are five times more identified plants than tree species. Accordingly, if planned correctly, trees can produce an entire world beyond their immediate bark and leaves.
There is no shortage of explanations for why people are so enamored of trees. There may well be primordial, biological, or even evolutionary connections. Even as humans have come down to earth, most primates still live in them. It is well to remember that if trees had not been there to deliver early Homo sapiens their shelter, construction materials, fruits, nuts, boats, and tools, civilization would not have happened.
Although modern humans have the ability to manipulate countless other materials, wood still provides much of the raw materials for buildings, furniture, glues, dyes, and of course the paper on which this book is printed. Half of the commonly prescribed drugs in America come from compounds taken from the trees in the world's forests. Add to this list of products essential ecological services such as pollination, erosion prevention, water purification, pest control, shade, and of course oxygen. There are also intangible benefits.
Nature offers humans a rich menu of landscapes for spiritual and emotional rejuvenation, contemplation, recreation, and reclaiming a sense of wonder. While beaches surely have their admirers, no landscape appears to be as universally compelling as forests. Even the odd individual, for whom forests carry no emotional force, can recognize that a comprehensive, rational appraisal should place an inestimably high value on them.
Forests' significance has gained even greater recognition in recent years due to their role in regulating and maintaining the planet's climate. The UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has emerged as the definitive scientific voice in sorting out the range of controversies regarding global warming. (Its contribution was important enough to earn it the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize.) While its calculations vary, the panel's consensus report estimates that soil and vegetation sequester 2.6 gigatons of carbon dioxide annually. Forests absorb the lion's share of this CO2. As old growth forests disappear without being replaced, carbon escapes to the atmosphere and terrestrial sequestration drops. Land use changes presently contribute 17 percent to annual global greenhouse gas emissions, with calculations dominated by deforestation in the tropics.
The literature, both popular and academic, associated with global forest dynamics is discouraging. It focuses on land degradation, fragmentation, logging, flora and fauna extinctions, as well as the direct and indirect drivers behind the alarming arboreal losses. But present trends suggest that humanity might be turning a corner and the aggregate increase in forest lands could soon exceed that which is harvested. As the world launches its collective reforestation campaign, it is important to get it right.
The story of Israel's forestry therefore is relevant for land managers, environmental advocates, and policy makers who seek a sustainable strategy for reforestation and afforestation efforts. It is also of interest for ordinary people who care about the future of the planet. During its sixty-five-year history, Israel proved that trend is not destiny by expanding its forested areas more than eightfold. In 1948, the planted stands and remnants of natural woodlands occupied less than 2 percent of the area of the State. By 2005 that figure had increased to some 8.5 percent, and should easily cross the 10 percent mark before stabilizing in a couple of decades. A land that was synonymous with erosion, desertification, and human neglect, is enjoying an environmental makeover.
This exercise in ecological rehabilitation occurred in a country where 97 percent of the ground is classified as "drylands," making it particularly relevant for half of the planet where water will always be scarce. The very alacrity with which Israel's foresters and the politicians who backed them embraced the country's forestry challenges ensured that mistakes would be made. And indeed they were—with economic, political and ecological consequences. But, in retrospect, lessons were learned and new approaches and policies for managing woodlands evolved.
Compared to its neighbors, Israel appears to care a great deal about trees. The UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) reports that 1.5 percent (or 9,000 hectares of the 620,000 total area) of present-day Palestine is forested. The good news there is that the situation is stable: numbers have neither increased nor decreased during the past twenty years, despite huge population surges. Conditions in neighboring Jordan are similar. Forests comprise 1.1 percent or 86,000 hectares of the countryside. About half was planted (largely during the days of the British Mandate), while the other half is defined as naturally regenerated forest. Since 1962, protective regulations have been enacted and logging has been prohibited for decades, leaving the small sample of surviving forestlands intact. While falling short of a controlled investigation, the stability in Palestine and Jordan allows them to serve as a quasi-experimental control group. The comparison with Israeli woodlands is instructive. There have been a few negative side effects, but most environmental indicators in Israel confirm that conditions among the "treatment group," with its hundreds of millions of trees, are favorable.
All the Trees of the Forest tells the story of this intervention and offers an account of Israel's forests. The first half of the account falls squarely under the discipline of environmental history. To understand the present policy dilemmas, it is important to grasp the physical and biological characteristics of Israel's newly established woodlands, along with the personalities, institutions, and political forces that produced them.
The second half of the book examines policy dilemmas that arise when engaging in aggressive afforestation. Some of them, like the tensions forestry policies created with Israel's Arab minority, might appear to be idiosyncratic or place specific. In fact, similar postcolonial dynamics exist in many countries around the world where herders' livelihoods depend on finding vegetation wherever they can. Finding a sustainable place in wooded rangelands for nomadic shepherds may not be a pressing challenge for forestry services in Europe, but it can make the difference between nourishment and famine for millions of people in the African Sahel. Afforestation in semi-arid regions raises hopes for land restoration across huge areas of Asia, Africa, and the Americas. It also raises complex issues: Should we be planting fast-growing trees on lands that were probably never forested just because we can? What sort of ecosystem service benefits would justify a departure from biological authenticity and diversity? How important is it for forests to be able to regenerate naturally? To what extent should we intervene to prevent forest fires and how? What role should the public have in planning forests and how accessible should they be to visitors? Is there a role for a timber industry in the drylands? And everyone needs to be thinking about carbon sequestration and the role that trees might play in addressing climate change, perhaps the world's paramount ecological challenge.
This book is an attempt to extend Israel's unique approach to some of the universal issues that foresters face. Because of its small size and the frenetic nature of its afforestation program, Israel can serve as a time machine. Readers can "fast-forward" ahead to see where other, hitherto untested dryland forestry programs might be in a few decades. While ever cognizant of the bigger picture, it is well not to lose sight of the details—the actual biological mechanisms and the sociological dynamics, so often overlooked, that make a local forestry program successful or unsuccessful. In trying to "see the forest through the trees," the site-specific lessons and the way ahead for Israel's woodlands remain important. Thanks to the Bible and the Holy Land's status for four religions, much of humanity has been inspired by ancient stories of the land of Israel. As the world is increasingly aware of its own ecological follies and global vulnerability, Israel's forests today can offer valuable lessons. They may even offer hope.
CHAPTER 2
Israel's Forests
From the Bible to the British
I have brought low the high trees and raised the shrubs, I have dried out the evergreens and made the dry vegetation flourish.
—Ezekiel 17:24
Characterizing Natural Israeli Woodlands
The first reports of organized political life in Canaan from the Bible include an uncompromising policy directive to conduct massive deforestation operations. Surprisingly, the instructions came from Moses' successor, Joshua Ben Nun.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from All the Trees of the Forest by ALON TAL. Copyright © 2013 Alon Tal. Excerpted by permission of Yale UNIVERSITY PRESS.
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Table of Contents
Preface xi
Acknowledgments xv
1 Degradation and Restoration 1
2 Israel's Forests: From the Bible to the British 9
3 A Mandate for Trees 30
4 Enthusiastic Saplings 56
5 Sustainable Forestry 93
6 Dryland Forests and Their Natural Enemies 123
7 Of Fires and Foraging 154
8 People and Trees 185
9 Ecosystem Services and Israel's Forests 225
Epilogue: All the Trees of the Forest 259
Notes 277
Index 329