How Israel Handles the Environment and Development
T
his issue of ES8Tis devoted to the environment of Israel and the eastern Mediterranean. I am grateful to the editors for asking me to serve as guest editor. When we created the Israel Environmental Protection Service in the early 1970% we knew very little about our own environment and even less about who could teach us. Environmental policies were just starting to emerge in the United States and Western Europe, and the interrelationship between environment and development was barely understood. The emergence of environmental management in Israel followed 20 years of extraordinarily intense development. The whole country was mobilized to the challenge of creating a strong economy for the new immigrants who flooded in from 70 countries around the world. During the 1950s and 1960s Israel’s population climbed from 600,000to close to 3,000,000. The economy grew at an average rate of 12% a year, with the expansion concentrated along a strip of Mediterranean coastline not more than 15 km wide. This development proceeded with very little if any environmental consideration. The end result was severe environmental deterioration. For example, during this time 30 new towns were built, but only one waste water treatment plant was put into operation, resulting in polluted groundwater, rivers, and sea. Very few people thought about the consequences of misusing the natural resources or the devastating results of building without environmental considerations. This was the social and the cultural atmosphere in which we began to create an environmental conscience and behavior. From the outset it was clear that for ideological and practical reasons we could not pursue an adversarial approach to environmental protection. We realized that most head-on conflicts with proponents of development would only be of nuisance value and would have very little effect on the decision-making process within the country. So, with almost no political or financial support but with quite a bit of “chutzpah,” we advised, encouraged, and demanded that environmental considerations be introduced into the planning and building process. Only rarely did we totally object to a proposed project. In many cases we proposed changes and amendments such as alter0013-936)(193/0927-1253$04.0010 63 1993 American Chemical Society
ing the site of a new coal-fired power plant, or the introduction of environmental management of the Sea of Galilee and its watershed. We felt it our responsibility to be part of the national quest for economic development and not to be perceived as working against it. Slowly, we gained a reputation for being hard-working, serious professionals, albeit unconventional bureaucrats. By the late 1970s and 1980s we were involved in every major planning and development decision in the country. In many cases we were asked to lead the planning and evaluation process. With very few resources and little statutory authority we had become influential and were able to help the country achieve its goals without further deterioration of its natural resources. Indeed in many cases there was a marked improvement in the quality of the environment and in the standard of living of the population. In the “global village” we live in, our every act affects not only our own environment but also the global one. It is therefore the responsibility of every person and nation to consider the effects of their behavior on the rest of the world. To do so, many countries still need help in developing their capacity to deal with the relationship between environment and development. The worst global environmental problem is not global warming, the depletion of the ozone layer, or acid rain; it is the lack of environmental management capacity in most countries. Until we recognize this and do something drastic to solve it, we cannot expect a real improvement in the state of the world.
Uri Marinov is the president of Environment and Development Management, operating from Jerusalem, Israel. He has a D.V.M. degree and an M S c . degree from low0 State University in Ames. Since 1969 he has been involved in creating the Israeli environment monaeement Drogram, and he was the first di&torgeAeral of the MinistT of the Environment until lulv 1992.He has extensive International Prperiencp in rnviranmental manogement planning and policies ond received the GIobol500 oward from UNEP.
--
.
L
Environ. Sci. Technol., VoI. 27. No. 7. 1993 1253
