From his fight for the waters of Ein Gedi to his travels in the savannas of Africa, Dr. Assaf Rosenthal warns against the transformation of nature reserves into mass recreation sites, the gap between climate declarations and actions, and the loss of environmental knowledge accumulated in indigenous cultures.
By Dr. Asaf Rosenthal
World Environment Day is an opportunity to look beyond the multitude of green days, slogans, and festive events, and ask a simple question: Are we really protecting nature, or are we just talking about it while we continue to turn it into a consumer product?
When I look today, from the height of my years and after decades of walking on trails, in deserts and reserves, at the state of Ein Gedi Reserve And about the state of the Earth in general, my heart sours and fills with worry.
The place where I fought in my youth for every drop of fresh water for the sake of flora and fauna, and the place where I sought to preserve as much as possible the primordial boundaries of nature, has undergone great changes. Not every change is necessarily negative, but the change in the perception that guides our relationship with nature is sometimes more dangerous than any road, building, or tourist facility.
During my time as director of the Ein Gedi Nature Reserve, we implemented regulations that were considered strict and even precedent-setting at the time. We restricted entry to sensitive parts of the streams, prohibited food and smoking in certain areas, and tried to minimize the harm visitors caused to the animals, vegetation, and water sources.
The starting point was simple: nature is not a setting designed to serve humans. It is a living system that has value in itself and a right to exist even when it cannot be immediately translated into revenue, visitor numbers, or economic profit.
A nature reserve is not an amusement park.
Over the years, a different perception has grown stronger. Nature reserves are sometimes presented as a tourist product that should be marketed to as many visitors as possible. Instead of asking how many people a sensitive ecosystem can support, the question is how to increase the number of entries, revenues, and hours of operation.
This does not mean that nature should be closed to the public. A visit to a reserve may arouse curiosity, love, and responsibility, especially in children. A public unfamiliar with nature will have a hard time fighting for it. However, we must recognize that every reserve has a limited carrying capacity.
Desert streams, small springs, cliffs used for nesting, and migration paths of wild animals They cannot absorb unlimited crowds of travelers, noise, waste, vehicles, and infrastructure. Visiting nature is a privilege, but it does not give us the right to destroy what we came to see.
Turning a delicate desert nature reserve into a mass recreation site, without restrictions based on scientific monitoring, can cause cumulative damage that is not immediately visible. First, a small plant is trampled on the side of the trail. Then animals are prevented from reaching a water source. The soil is eroded, stream banks are damaged, and noise becomes a permanent part of the landscape.
Thus, slowly and gradually, we may keep the sign at the entrance to the reserve, but lose the purpose for which it was established.
Nature is not a product on a supermarket shelf. It is a complex and fragile system that needs time, silence, and space to exist and recover. If we do not recognize this, we may succeed in bringing more visitors in the short term, but we will bequeath to future generations reserves that remain when the nature within them is no longer there.
From the desert stream to the global crisis
The same view of nature as an unlimited reservoir of raw materials, land, and opportunities for profit also operates on a global scale. For generations, we have treated forests, seas, and the atmosphere as if their capacity to absorb logging, fishing, mining, and pollution was infinite.
Today it turns out that the account didn't disappear. It was just postponed.
Climate crisis And the ecological crisis is not a future scenario for disaster movies. It is already evident in heat waves, droughts, floods, fires, habitat loss, and species extinction.
International climate conferences are necessary. Without cooperation between countries, it is impossible to deal with a problem that knows no borders. However, sometimes it seems that the gap between solemn declarations and actual actions is only widening.
Leaders announce far-fetched goals, while countries continue to subsidize fossil fuels, approve polluting infrastructure, and delay tough decisions. Energy companies present green plans, but continue to produce and market vast quantities of oil and gas.
Humanity cannot be satisfied with slogans, high-profile conferences, and repeatedly postponed goals. A real reduction in greenhouse gas emissions at source is required, alongside protection of forests, seas, open spaces, and ecosystems.
Money does not bring back extinct species.
The countries that have become rich over more than a century of polluting industrialization bear a special responsibility to help countries that did not create the bulk of the crisis, but are suffering its most severe consequences.
This aid is essential and just. Poor countries and small islands cannot cope alone with rising sea levels, desertification, droughts and the destruction of infrastructure. But financial compensation cannot be a substitute for stopping pollution.
Money does not bring back an extinct species. It does not bring back a dead coral reef, it does not regrow an ancient forest in a few years, and it does not restore a collapsed ecosystem overnight.
Financial compensation is not a license to continue polluting. It must be accompanied by real and rapid reductions in emissions, protection of habitats, and a profound change in the way the human economy uses natural resources.
When we harm nature, we harm ourselves.
The damage to nature also comes back to us in the form of health risks. When humans cut down forests, destroy habitats, change land use, and expand contact between humans, farm animals, and wildlife, they increase the risk of disease-causing agents passing between species.
The exact origin of the coronavirus is still unknown, so there is no room for absolute certainty. However, the broader environmental lesson is clear. Habitat destruction, uncontrolled wildlife trade, and increasing human encroachment into natural spaces are increasing friction between humans and previously distant animals and pathogens.
The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the extent to which the human world depends on natural systems over which we have no control. It has also reminded us that disrupting the ecological balance can take a heavy toll on our health, society, and economy.
When we harm the natural systems that sustain us, we don't just harm plants, insects, or animals that are out of sight. We also endanger our health, our food, our water sources, and our economic stability.
Nature is not an external enemy to be conquered. We are part of it and depend on it for every breath, every glass of water, and every slice of bread.
The African Dilemma
I have also learned the complexities of nature conservation during my many travels in the savannas of Africa. The encounter with the sport hunting industry arouses a deep revulsion in me.
The idea that a person pays a huge sum to kill a lion, elephant, or rhinoceros and display its head is, in my opinion, a harsh expression of arrogance and moral detachment from nature.
But the reality on the ground does not always align with the simple answers we would like to give from afar.
In some areas, legal and limited hunting, under scientific quotas, close monitoring, and genuine revenue sharing by local communities, may provide a source of funding for rangers, patrols, vehicles, and the protection of open spaces from illegal hunting.
This does not automatically justify hunting, and certainly not any cull program presented as “conservation.” Success depends on transparency, enforcement, the condition of the species, and the fact that the proceeds actually go to nature conservation and local residents, and do not disappear into the pockets of interested parties.
Without the participation of the residents, the reserve may be perceived by them as land taken from them for the benefit of wealthy tourists. When an elephant destroys a crop, a predator harms a herd, or a wild animal endangers a person, it is not enough to tell the residents that they must pay the price of conservation for the sake of the world.
Effective nature protection must also create local benefits, livelihoods, and a sense of community. Local residents are not an obstacle to conservation, but essential partners in it. If they have no interest in preserving wildlife and the existence of open spaces, there will be no protected wilderness left in the long run.
Loss of language is also loss of nature.
Nature, people, culture, and language are interconnected. This is particularly evident in the connection between indigenous languages and the environmental knowledge of the communities that speak them.
When an ancient language disappears, we don't just lose words, stories, and expressions. We may also lose knowledge accumulated over generations about water sources, seasons, edible and medicinal plants, animal behavior, and local management of land and forests.
Language can contain fine distinctions between plant species, names for seasonal phenomena, descriptions of animal behavior, and methods for dealing with drought, fires, or food shortages. Some of this knowledge does not appear in textbooks or is not stored in databases.
This does not mean that every ancient tradition is scientifically correct or that all indigenous knowledge should be accepted without examination. It does mean that language is a receptacle for accumulated human experience.
When a language disappears before the knowledge has been recorded, tested, and passed on to future generations, some of that experience may disappear with it.
Just as the disappearance of a language erases part of human memory, so the pollution of streams, the destruction of deserts, deforestation, and uncontrolled "development" of savannas erase possibilities from the future.
My environmental will
My life story began in a wooden crate on the back of a camel in the dunes of Shefayim, passed through the commandos in Sinai, the mud of Neot HaKikar and the struggle for water in Ein Gedi, and continued to the great journeys in the Amazon and Africa.
This is not just a nostalgic collection of adventures and tales of a disappearing generation. To me, it is a testament to a world where wilder, quieter, freer spaces still remain.
That world was not perfect, but in many places it had not yet been completely conquered by roads, infrastructure, commerce, and mass tourism. I was privileged to live, breathe, and explore a world where it was still possible to go out into a large space and know that man was not the sole owner of the house.
This is also my spiritual and environmental testament: Nature is not a luxury. It is not an ornament that can be preserved only when it is economically convenient. It is the infrastructure on which our lives rest.
It is still possible to change direction. We can limit the number of visitors to sensitive sites, restore water to streams, protect ecological corridors, reduce emissions, involve local communities, and let scientific considerations prevail over short-term interests.
But the time for this is not unlimited.
Protect the reserves. Preserve the water flowing in the streams. Leave the animals a space to live in without noise, light, and constant pursuit. Let the desert remain a desert and the forest remain a forest.
And let the generations that come after us also know a world where man has a place – but not all of it.
