Forty years of wandering from bad decisions to neglect have done terrible damage to the lowest place on earth. By Shuki Sadeh Short-term thinking. Unthinking optimism – “everything will work out.” Putting off hard decisions, selling national assets for peanuts, and first and foremost, of course, a lack of governance. These are the factors behind […]

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By Hana Namrouqa AMMAN – By the end of this year all the Kingdom’s aquifers will be linked to a system which evaluates the behaviour of underground basins and the quantity of water pumped from them, a government official said on Tuesday. The country’s three main basins, Amman-Zarqa, Azraq and the Jordan Valley, have been […]

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By Hana Namrouqa YARMOUK NATURE RESERVE – Visitors to the Yarmouk Nature Reserve can now enjoy panoramic views of the Yarmouk River, Golan Heights and Lake Tiberias from a new hiking trail which winds through forests of deciduous oaks. Located in the northwest of the country, the reserve is Jordan’s newest eco-tourist destination with over […]

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By Hana Namrouqa AMMAN – The Ministry of Environment is distributing thousands of flytraps and insect-repellent trees in the Jordan Valley to curb the spread of domestic flies, a nuisance to area residents and tourists. The environment-friendly methods are being implemented under a campaign launched in January to address one of the main environment and […]

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The Animal Welfare Law was passed 17 years ago, but the Agriculture Ministry, which also represents farmers, has done little to enforce it. Now the environment minister is petitioning to take over protecting friends both furry and flavorful. By Shlomit Tsur A particularly cruel death is meted out to 11,000 baby chicks each day in […]

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By Hana Namrouqa AMMAN – The Royal Society for the Conservation of Nature (RSCN) on Monday announced the end of the bird-hunting season across the Kingdom and called on hunters to abide by regulations. Hunting of all types of birds, particularly wild pigeons and chukar, is banned from early May and until early June to […]

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By SHARON UDASIN 04/26/2011 23:11 New rules extend hours when construction is banned, bar noisy gardening equipment and soon, blaring car alarms. A series of amendments to the 1992 Abatement of Nuisances Law go into effect on Wednesday, which will increase the hours in which construction is banned and will also introduce additional regulations – […]

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By SHARON UDASIN 05/04/2011 03:26 Gilad Erdan praises project, says, “There is nothing cleaner than bicycles”; over 30 stations already active. Tel Aviv-Yafo has joined a host of European cities by initiating a bike rental program within its borders – allowing commuters to hop on and off at locations scattered throughout the municipality. The initiative […]

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There is talk about amending the current legislation on the protection of environment, and that is indeed good news. The circle of those calling for tougher legislation on the protection of environment is getting larger, and that is encouraging, but the focus seems to centre on toughening up penalties for violations of the existing guidelines […]

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Report — American Near East Refugee Aid Cremisan, Beit Jala – Today, ANERA signed a contract to install sewage collection pipelines for Beit Jala’s Cremisan area. The project is being implemented by ANERA under the Emergency Water and Sanitation and Other Infrastructure (EWAS II) Program funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). […]

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By Hana Namrouqa ZARQA – Dilapidated water and sewage networks in Zarqa Governorate will be revamped by 2015 to achieve a regular water supply and end flooding of wastewater, officials said on Monday. “Tenders for sanitation projects worth JD130 million will be floated later this year, in addition to the allocation of JD60-JD65 million for […]

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By SHARON UDASIN 04/21/2011 23:21 Plant should be completed by 2013; the natural gas to power the plant will be supplied by Egypt’s East Mediterranean Gas company. Construction of Israel’s largest privately-owned power plant has gotten under way this week, piloted by Scottish-based construction firm Wood Group GTS at an Eilat Ashkelon Pipeline Co. site […]

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By Hana Namrouqa AMMAN – Eco-tourism in Jordan is expanding and attracting more visitors, with more than one million tourists visiting the Kingdom’s diverse nature reserves and protected areas last year, officials said on Tuesday. Around 975,000 tourists visited the Petra National Park in 2010, while 500,000 visited the country’s nature reserves last year, according […]

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By Hana Namrouqa AMMAN – An environment society is planning to sue the Jordan Petroleum Refinery Company (JPRC) for “poisoning the Jordanian people by producing low-quality diesel”. The Energy Conservation and Sustainable Environment Society, a not-for-profit NGO that seeks to limit harmful gases emitted from fuel combustion, is in the process of filing a lawsuit […]

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By SHARON UDASIN 04/28/2011 04:12 Israel’s International Anti-Fur Coalition calls the trade a “moral atrocity,” but the government maintains that the harvest is “sustainable” and “humane.” Talkbacks (1) On the pavement outside Tel Aviv’s Canadian Embassy on Wednesday afternoon, a stuffed seal pillow with painted blood running down its face sat amid a circle of […]

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April 28, 2011 01:53 AM (Last updated: April 28, 2011 09:28 AM) By Maher Zeineddine CHOUF: Environmental professionals and activists are outraged over photos showing dozens of dead storks, which were put on Facebook by an amateur hunter who killed the birds in north Lebanon. Environmental organizations and institutions condemned the killing as a crime […]

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AMMAN (JT) – Sapling production in nurseries dropped by around 30 per cent in 2010 compared to 2009, according to the results of a survey conducted by the Department of Statistics (DoS). The results neither provided the reasons for the decline nor the expected effects. The number of fruit-bearing saplings went down from 2.9 million […]

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About 1.5 million chicken carcasses were buried in the country’s north following an epidemic, including a large portion found in locations that risk contaminating ground water. By Zafrir Rinat Hundreds of thousands of chicken carcasses were concealed for months alongside chicken coops in northern Israel, creating an environmental hazard and endangering the water supply, according […]

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BEIRUT: Despite the government’s recent closure of a sand quarry in the Jabal Moussa Biosphere Reserve, the site remains under pressure from individiuals who were profiting from the quarry activities, according to an association involved in protecting the site. The Jabal Moussa site was declared a protected forest by the Agriculture Ministry in 2008 and […]

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For around a decade now, illegal trade in ancient olive trees – including uprooting, stealing and smuggling them from the West Bank into Israel – has reportedly been flourishing. Haaretz Editorial The immoral wealthy have a new and tasteless toy: ancient olive trees adorning the gardens of their villas. According to an investigative report by […]

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