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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28-04-2011 access the news item here and the press release. Two feasibility studies are currently being prepared in Lebanon and Tunisia, while another three potential investment projects are finalising the pre-feasibility study stage in Egypt, under the Horizon 2020 initiative for de-pollution of the Mediterranean by 2020. At the same time, there is ongoing dialogue in […]

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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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A few months ago, Italy took the laudable decision of getting rid of plastic bags. This southern European country used to consume about one-fifth of the plastic bags on the continent, so the move must have been more than welcome. It aimed mainly at protecting the fragile environment, knowing that scientists warn that polyethylene bags […]

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By Hana Namrouqa DANA BIOSPHERE RESERVE – Reconstruction work on Dana Village, a gateway to the Dana Biosphere Reserve, is currently under way to transform the abandoned village into an eco-tourism destination, according to conservationists. Crumbling houses built decades ago in the village, which sits on a cliff overlooking one of the Kingdom’s most scenic […]

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