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This month FoEME's Amman office joined forces with 350.org to draw attention to the impact climate change and unsustainable water consumption and policies are having on the Dead Sea in an event entitled "Climate Dots by the Dead Sea".

 

One hundred youth from the Jordan Valley, Amman, and Salt gathered along the shores of the Dead Sea holding red balloons, warning of the immediate need for action, and on strings extending to different heights up to 26 meters, demonstrating the continuously declining water levels throughout the years. To learn more about this exciting event visit our events page, read our blog or visit 350.org's page about our event.

 

To read press coverage of this event from the Telegraph and the Huffington Post and others visit our Climate Change press page.

FoEME Water trustees at Beit Yerach School wrote a quiz about the Lower Jordan River for the annual ecological fair. The questions in the quiz reflected the knowledge they have acquired throughout the year from the Good Water Neighbors (GWN) project activities, tours and cross border meetings. We were also pleased to see the students thinking critically about issues which would have been 'taken for granted'.

 

How well do you know the Lower Jordan River – find out by taking the quiz yourself in Hebrew or in English!

This month, the GWN participating West Jerusalem based Nissui School undertook to clear, study and renovate a unique water cistern located right next to their school. About 150 students participated in a community archeological dig led by FoEME and Emek Shaveh.

 

Equipped with helmets, gloves, small spades and brooms, the kids descended into the ground some 20 meters and back in time over a thousand years, entering an enourmous cavern. They worked hard clearing away rocks, earth and debris that had accumulated for many generations, patiently separating evidence of people living in this area at different eras and phases. As the cistern floor was gently exposed, so were questions concerning our involvement and responsibility for past, present and future of our close environment; conservation vs. development; and consequences of modification of landscape and waterways.

 

To read recent press coverage about our Good Water Neighbors Project from Ha'aretz and more please visit our GWN press page.

 

The Good Water Neighbors project is supported by USAID, SIDA, the EU Partnership for Peace program, and the Rosenzweig Coopersmith Foundation.

FoEME's Amman office presented the organization’s proposal to create a Jordanian National Park at Bakoura to the Health and Environment Committee of the Jordanian Lower House of Parliament. FoEME called for the meeting to discuss the long-time plans for the area.

 

Through FoEME’s management, Bakoura would become a protected area where visitors could enjoy the natural beauty of the Lower Jordan River and spectacular surrounding landscape. Plans also include developing infrastructure through smaller projects such as creating a museum and information center from the hydroelectric power plant and converting the old workers houses into eco lodges. The special hearing attracted high level support from Ministers, Committee members and local authorities and proved an important step forward in advancing the national park initiative. To read more about this event read our blog.

This month FoEME's Tel Aviv office partnered with the Interfaith Center for Sustainable Development and Rabbis for Human Rights to undertake a pilot interfaith seminar on the Jordan River. The seminar brought together congregational leaders and seminary students who are studying to be Sheikhs, Rabbis and Priests to learn about the current state of the Jordan River and exchange perspectives on the importance of the river from the three faith's perspectives.

 

This activity, part of the Jordan River Rehabilitation Project, aims to further open channels of communication and partnership between environmentalists and faith based communities in the region. To learn more about this unique tour please read our blog.

Green Week in Brussels

From May 22nd to May 25th, FoEME and its partner Global Nature Fund’s efforts to rehabilitate the Lower Jordan River were highlighted at the Green Week Conference in Brussels, the biggest annual conference on European environment policy. This year the conference, aptly entitled “Every Drop Counts,” focused on water; the FoEME and GNF booth raised awareness about the importance of the transboundary river as a natural habitat - highlighting the Otter, once numerous in the Jordan River and now considered critically endangered. Furthermore, FoEME's Jordan River work was featured in a special edition of FORUM CSR released for Green Week. To learn more about this event visit our events page or read our blog.

 

To read recent press coverage about our Jordan River Rehabilitation Project from the San Francisco Examiner and more please visit our Jordan River press page.

 

The Jordan River Rehabilitation Project is supported by the Swedish International Development Agency, the Richard and Rhoda Goldman Fund, the Global Nature Fund / Ursula Merz Foundation and the Osprey Foundation.

This month FoEME's Bethlehem and Amman offices brought together representatives from municipalities in Palestine and Jordan to sign the new Protecting Groundwater Project's (PGW) Memorandum of Understanding. The Palestinian ceremony took place at the Auja Environmental Center on May 9th and the Jordanian event took place on May 13th at the Sharhabil bin Hassaneh EcoPark.

 

In both countries mayors and municipal authorities expressed support for the project and its role in raising professional knowledge and ability to protect groundwater through technical training and support for coordinating between the municipalities. To read more about the Palestinian signing ceremony please read our blog.

Following the successful MoU signing ceremonies in Jordan, Palestine, and Israel, the PGW project launched its first round of trainings to empower municipal staff to alleviate sources of groundwater pollution. One of the first steps is conducting Geographical Information System (GIS) training courses which are already improving municipality workers mapping and monitoring skills.

 

The picture on the right was taken on a field trip on one of our courses, in which participants collected map coordinates of the polluted Kishon stream with their smart-phones. After that, they returned to the classroom and uploaded the route of the polluted river into the GIS system. These and other new skills will hopefully enable more advanced environmental policy throughout the region.

 

The "Protecting Groundwater" project is supported by the European Union’s ENPI CBC Mediterranean Sea Basin Programme.