Conservation versus development - even environmentalists need to find the balance. opinion

When protecting the environment becomes a political tool and the environmentalists practice with religious fanaticism, environmentalism becomes a harmful and harmful industry. Here are some examples

First, a confession: from my youth I was a passionate conservationist and when I worked at "Rasht" the enthusiasm was fanatical.

With the help of other inspectors, I arrested criminals poachers without "delicacy, yet, and together we destroyed nets designed to capture peaceful people along the Gaza, Rafah and El-Arish coasts.

I expelled herds from the boundaries of the reserves, closed sections of the reserve (Ein-Gadi) to travelers, sent garbage packages in Gobeyna to the litterers, stopped tractors from work that was doubtfully approved.

In the context of writing later on the subject of carrying capacity: when the road from Ein Gedi to Jerusalem was opened it was clear to me that the reserve was facing "flooding".

In an attempt to prevent this, I summoned the Arad police with a request to prevent cars from parking on the sides of the road (90), thus the parking lot constituted a limit to the number of visitors to the reserve, since no one bothered to check and determine the carrying capacity of the reserve, the capacity of the parking lot was a compromise for regulating the number of visitors.

After all this, I hope that even today the field workers/inspectors working in the reserves behave with zeal, but it is necessary to separate work in the field from policy. As I grew older and learned, I realized that as much as it is appropriate to be jealous in the field, the conservation policy must take into account additional factors, be flexible and compromise.

Compromise is also important because of the need to take into account the real needs of residents, otherwise a situation is obtained in which rich environmentalists cause oppression of poor residents, the environmental movement, the environmental activists usually come from the established and wealthy elite, activists motivated by pure motives combine forces and fight against development even when it is clear that those who will benefit From the development there will be poor local populations. Or alternately entrepreneurs who promise development that will improve the conditions of the locals, but over time the result is not positive.

In the Aceh forest in Sumatra lies a reserve that has been declared a world heritage site Mount Leuser National Park In the reserve live tigers, orangutans, rhinoceroses and elephants, species in danger of extinction, the reserve is part of one of the richest areas of the Aed forest in the world that extends over about a million square kilometers of the Indian Ocean As far as the Straits of Malacca (Malacca) like many of the forests, this area is also under development threats, every year hundreds of square kilometers are cut down mainly to plant oil palms.

In the last 25 years, Indonesia has lost more than 50% of its forest areas, at the head of the fight against the destruction of the forests are environmentalists who establish shelters for animals, the shelters are located near villages whose residents enjoy workplaces, roads, schools and hospitals, the funding for these important and positive projects also comes from celebrities , maybe to clear their conscience?

It is not surprising that rich celebrities whose carbon footprint is huge intervene in the initiative, not necessarily out of recognition of the vital need to protect nature and the environment, but more to be known as someone who has joined the considered circle of environmentalists, for example Leonardo-DiCaprio uses the area for the filming of his movie "Before the Flood" A commercial film that should warn against environmental disasters."

Recently, a new front was opened in the environmental struggle to preserve the Aed Forest, geothermal sources were discovered that allow the utilization of clean energy to produce electricity on a huge scale, but the development of the project is slow due to a lack of funding sources and due to the opposition of the greens who claim that such development will damage 8 square kilometers of the reserve. Does damage to 8 square kilometers out of an area of ​​about one million square kilometers justify opposition to development? Development to provide green electricity, development that will improve the living conditions of the locals, not to mention the enormous damage caused to the forest by other development projects?

Another project in the same reserve, a bridge over the river that will facilitate the movement of the locals and their arrival at a regional hospital, was "attacked" by David Attenborough on the grounds that the bridge would harm concentrations of animals and plants, true, there is no doubt that in both cases there will be environmental damage, but is it not true To consider the welfare of the local residents against negligible damage to nature? Is it not right to consider the damage to nature against the needs of locals? How important and vital must the needs of the residents be to earn the support of environmental activists and conservation authorities?

This is the case in Indonesia, while in our country several years ago, following a long struggle, the bream cages were removed from the head of the Gulf of Eilat. The financial cost of the struggle and the transfer of the cages to the Mediterranean Sea was heavy, this despite the fact that there is no survey or inspection that determines the level of damage to the cages in the Mediterranean Sea compared to the damage in the Gulf of Eilat.

Today, the same bodies are once again fighting against the decision to raise the fish in ponds (on land), and again I claim that instead of opposing, they will do the right thing if they establish conditions for growing and handling the ponds, conditions that the breeders will undertake to comply with and which will minimize the environmental damage.

And more: these days the winds are storming because of the intention to establish a Shabsavt farm to produce electricity from the wind, the risks of major hazards: noise and glare for humans, damage to the visual landscape and harm to birds, thus turning a Shabsavt farm that is supposed to provide green electricity into a hazard, which until not long ago was accepted as green development becomes a nuisance, wouldn't it be right for the greens, the environmentalists and the residents if instead of shouting they don't set conditions anyway?

And in contrast, a megalomaniac development plan for Eilat has long been published, a project that was once called the "Peace Promenade" has become "Eilat Ein-Sof", hotels, promenades, commercial and construction areas are planned to be built around the short and narrow coast of the northern gulf. Until now, I have not heard the Greens' response to the plan, but at first glance, the plan does not take into account the most important factor that requires any development, the carrying capacity of the planned area.

Carrying capacity is a concept that every planner must understand and take into account, every planning must begin with a survey that will determine how many people will use the area and what is the maximum number above which there will be damage to the area, damage that will cause the area's ability to carry its users to decrease and subsequently to destruction.

Carrying capacity will always be a compromise between the desire to maintain the existing and the need for development, therefore it is mandatory for every planner/developer to start every project with a carrying capacity survey, for some reason to this day the obligation is not accepted in our environment and therefore in many cases the result is - economic and environmental destruction.

Environmentalists turn to common sense in the demand to prevent damage to nature, there is no doubt about the need for a healthy and fertile environment for the existence of our world, but there are cases in which the environmental fanaticism leads to exaggeration. When every development project that is proposed causes immediate opposition instead of examining how to minimize damages, when the claim is that "there is no environmental price that is worth the profit of development", environmentalism becomes a fanatical religion to such an extent that there were those who called the "Church of the Environment" and claimed that "in the 21st century it has become The environmentalism for the connection between Christian Jews and atheist urbanites".

"We are all energy sinners doomed to death if we do not look for redemption that today is called sustainable in the church of the environment, the holy bread will be organic and the wine free of insecticides" Is this how we want to appear? Do the environmentalists want to resemble believers who are sure of the one and only truth? Does every skeptic in the religion of environmentalism deserve denunciation and condemnation? Does the way to protect our environment have to rely on religious fanaticism?

According to the media method of "if it bleeds, it's news", the media publishes predictions of disasters, destruction and extinction of animals and humans even when the causes are not clear. But the media is dependent on environmental sources and thus the disasters take on more color, when it becomes clear that the media are controlled by wealthy people who have their eyes on profit, who play the environmental into their hands and become part of the negative in the media.

When protecting the environment becomes a political tool and the environmentalists practice with religious zeal, environmentalism becomes a harmful and harmful industry, when there are those who say "environment before profit" and it turns out that the intention is "our profit first", the solitary (altruistic) idea turns into purely profit attempts.

There is no doubt that most environmentalists are motivated by positive and correct ideas and attitudes that want a better world for all of us, but they too must remember that they too do not have a monopoly on the truth and the knowledge of what is good or bad.

So in the case of preventing people from building bridges or developing clean energy sources when they collide with other environmental value, so also in the case of development attempts for poor populations in reserved areas, so also in the opposite case of the need to determine carrying capacity before developing.

It should be known and understood that the majority of environmentalists do promote the good of the environment and the person before personal gain and act out of genuine concern and with the aim of preventing serious harm, but there are those among them who are motivated by the same old religion - greed and power and it is worth being careful of them.

After all this, so that I will not be suspected as someone who is not jealous of the environment, I will mention that since I referred to carrying capacity, it is appropriate to check and investigate, measure and weigh the carrying capacity of our world and then it will become clear that the time has come that instead of controlling the environment for the sake of the human population, there will be control of the human population for the sake of the environment.