Time for Israel to clean up its act, says environmental activist

Israel is dirty — and people are dying because of it.

Alon Tal, one of Israel's leading environmentalists, is visibly pained when he admits that those statements are true. He's tired of telling people that 1,000 Israelis die each year from air pollution.

But he's all smiles when he talks about his efforts for change.

"We are the first to live at a time when the Jewish people have a little corner of the earth," he said during a visit to the Bay Area. "We need to ask ourselves: Do we want to be slumlords or do we care about this land?"

He's hoping Israelis and American Jews choose Option B.

As such, he's spent the past month traveling around the United States to promote the brand new Tal Fund for Environment and Conservation, which he created with the Jewish National Fund after he won a prestigious grant last year. He spoke at the Palo Alto and San Francisco JCCs on Feb. 6 and 7, respectively.

The Tal Fund seeks to empower grassroots environmental organizations by providing them with money and support to put their ideas into action. The fund will be entirely volunteer-run, and so without overhead costs, 100 percent of people's donations go directly to organizations working to clean up and improve the quality of Israel's air, landscape, waterways and wildlife.

"Israelis are waking up and smelling the coffee, or should I say, sulfur dioxide," Tal joked.

Tal is of moderate height with a graying beard. He speaks with no Israeli accent, since he grew up in the Smoky Mountains of North Carolina. He is articulate, but talks so fast that catching all his emphatic points is difficult. He's just that excited about the Tal Fund.

Environmental problems may seem insurmountable, but by thinking globally and acting locally, small community organizations can be powerful forces for change, he said. That's why he wants to give money to small startups. Affecting change is easier from the bottom up, instead of the top down. Government officials are too busy, and the Ministry of the Environment's budget is too small, Tal said.

Already, he's seen environmental issues take root at a local level. The mayors of Tel Aviv and Haifa are both members of green parties. He believes Israelis will soon consider the environmental record and philosophy of national government officials.

"Environmentalism is a return to the essence of Zionism. We must return the harmony between Jews and the Promised Land," he said. "What does it mean to redeem the land? We have to learn how to live with the desert, not how to conquer the desert."

Tal created the fund after he received the 2006 Charles Bronfman prize, a humanitarian award for Jewish leaders.

The Jewish National Fund matched the prize, and formed a partnership with Tal to create seed capital of $200,000. The Richard and Rhoda Goldman Fund this week gave Tal $25,000 to further help grow his vision.

Sherri Morr, western regional director for the JNF, said she's excited about this new partnership. She hopes American Jews feel the same, and donate to the fund to advance Israeli environmentalism.

"It's a way to make people aware that Israel, a very far away land, has issues just like we do, issues beyond borders and who resides in them," Morr said. "This is yet another way we connect people to Israel."

Tal has been a longtime leader in Israel's environmental movement. He founded the Arava Institute for Environmental Studies in 1996. The graduate studies center enrolls Israeli, Jordanian and Palestinian students to learn about the environment in an interdisciplinary way.

He has taught at numerous American and Israeli universities, and currently teaches environmental policy at Ben Gurion University.

"Taking care of the homeland is not just about providing a prosperous economy," he said. "We haven't met our environmental responsibility yet."




The Tal Fund's first round of projects include:

• Consolidating nature reserves throughout the Negev to allow for ecological corridors and uninterrupted hiking access.

• Saving the historic hillside of "Titora" and creating an archeological park in Modi'in.

• Litigation to force clean-up of contaminated lands adjacent to a Galilee industrial zone.

• An initiative to declare the scenic Nes Tsiona "Iris hills" a protected nature reserve, thereby preventing residential sprawl.