10 January 2011
Celebrating trees, after the fire
As Israel counts the cost of the devastating Carmel forest fire, work is already underway to help regenerate the forest, and teach the locals to take care of this unique reserve.
By Avigayil Kadesh
Always a time for planting in Israel, the ancient Jewish New Year for the Trees or Tu B'Shvat - this year, corresponding to the 20th of January - will serve as a symbolic start to bringing the devastated Carmel forest back to life after the early December fire that led to 44 deaths and destroyed about five million trees along with many plants and creatures.
It will take massive manpower and money to restore the nature reserve, fix damaged buildings and infrastructure, and care for residents traumatized or left homeless by the blaze. Many government ministries are working together with the Israel Nature and Parks Authority and Keren Kayemeth LeYisrael-Jewish National Fund (KKL-JNF) to rehabilitate the forest and prevent future disasters.
The Carmel Forest blankets the coastal Carmel mountain range, the only Israeli biosphere reserve designated by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). Jewish, Muslim, Christian and Druze towns and cities are nestled in and around its 80 square miles, including the port city of Haifa on its northern slope.
Because it is mentioned often in biblical literature - most often in relation to the prophet Elijah, who many believe lived for some years in caves found on the slopes - this mountain range has great religious significance and is home to the Carmelite Catholic order and the world headquarters of the Baha'i faith.
The biodiverse Carmel has always been a favorite spot for nature-lovers thanks to its wide variety of aromatic plants, wild flowers and forest wildlife such as songbirds, raptors, reptiles and wildcats. In addition to oak, cypress and pistachio trees, the Carmel has the only woodland forest of Aleppo pine trees on the eastern Mediterranean coast.
The Carmel Forest Spa in better days. The woodland surrounding the exclusive spa
was almost completely destroyed in the fire.
"We don’t know how many adult pines are left now," says Prof. Ido Izhaki, director of the Center for the Study of the Carmel, established less than two years ago by the University of Haifa in cooperation with the Nature and Parks Authority to supervise educational and preservation projects. "Many of them are gone. We hope we have enough to keep this species alive."
Dousing the blaze
The deadliest fire in Israeli history began on the morning of December 2, 2010, the first day of Hanukkah - apparently ignited accidentally by a teenage resident of the Druze town of Ussafiya. A total of 44 people lost their lives, most of them Israel Prison Service cadets sent to evacuate a jail. More than 17,000 people were evacuated from villages in the vicinity of the fire.
Prime Minister Netanyahu put out an international call for help as KKL-JNF and Israeli firefighters were soon overwhelmed. More than 30 firefighting aircraft were sent from other countries to help Israeli crews battle the flames, including a privately-owned American Boeing 747 Evergreen Supertanker, the world’s largest firefighting aircraft. Planes and helicopters stocked with chemical extinguisher came from Azerbaijan, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, France, Italy, Germany, Greece, Russia, Spain, Switzerland, Turkey and the United Kingdom and United States. Many of these countries also sent firefighting experts and fire retardant materials. Bulgaria sent 92 firefighters, Greece sent 34, Russia 22, the United States 11 and Holland five. Egypt sent material aid; Jordan sent three truckloads of firefighting equipment and materials; and the Palestinian Authority contributed 21 firefighters and three fire engines.
About one-third of the nature reserve was affected by the fire, and not only trees were lost. Michael Weinberger, KKL-JNF forest supervisor for the Western Galilee and Carmel Mountain, describes how the forest fire devastated animal habitats.
"Many animals were killed in the fire, but even if they managed to survive, their habitat is gone," Weinberger explains. "I saw a deer that came back to its territory, a beautiful green forest that was now black and red from the fire retardant sprayed by the fire planes. The poor thing had such a look of shock and disbelief in its gentle eyes. And there was a goldfinch that stood staring at the burnt forest, incapable of moving even when people stood right next to it. These are memories I will never forget."
Huge swathes of the forest were laid bare, destroying the habitat of millions of birds,
animalsand wildlife.
Workers at the Carmel's Hai Bar Nature Reserve managed to transfer its collection of raptors to the Ramat Hanadiv park while the fire raged. The government has formed a Plant and Animal Rehabilitation Committee to oversee rehabilitation of campgrounds, animal parks, Hai Bar and the Carmel Farm.
Although the damage was unprecedented, it was not the first time the Carmel Forest had been burned. Dr. Leah Wittenberg of the Department of Geography and Environmental Studies at the University of Haifa estimates that since 1978, the range has suffered 500 small and medium fires as well as nine large ones, the most recent in 1989. Sections that have been burned more than once will be the most difficult to rehabilitate, she says. A governmental steering committee representing various ministries launched an action plan in cooperation with the Environmental Protection Ministry, the Nature and Parks Authority and the KKL-JNF.
"We are currently carrying out several important missions," Netanyahu reported on December 12, "Rehabilitating the communities, dealing with the evacuees, rehabilitating the Carmel forests, and quickly implementing the two main lessons - establishing a national fire and aerial firefighting force."
Let nature take its course
At the Carmel Mountain Hotel just seven days after the fire was finally put out, KKL-JNF world chairman Efi Stenzler and Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman presided over a symbolic tree-planting ceremony with ambassadors from the United States, Russia, France, Germany, Greece, Spain, Austria, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Japan, Korea, Holland, Norway, Romania, Ukraine, Azerbaijan, Egypt and Jordan and a representative of the Palestinian Authority. Generally, however, experts advise that it's best for the scorched forest to regenerate slowly on its own, since replanting could result in an overly dense, fire-prone thicket.
Yisrael Tauber, director of KKL-JNF's Afforestation Department, says that for the next 12 months, replanting will only be done in public recreational areas.
Prof. Ido Izhaki, head of the Carmel Research Center at the University of Haifa, agreed that only minimal intervention is necessary. "There are plant species [there] that have developed resilience to fire and those that have developed a dependency on fire, such as the Aleppo pine."
Oddly, Aleppo pine cones crack open only through heat, releasing their seeds to the forest floor. "After this enormous fire, the Carmel will be covered with pine buds," Izhaki predicts. "That is what happened after the 1989 fire." Broad-leaved trees such as oak, arbutus and pistachio retained their roots and will begin to sprout more quickly.
Izhaki noted that some 15 to 20 years after the 1989 forest fire, "the forest reached a climax in terms of its fauna and vegetation diversity. This indicates that after about this amount of time following a fire, the forest will be home to more species of wildlife and vegetation than there were before," assuming it can be protected from additional fires.
To that end, Dr. Omri Bonneh, KKL-JNF northern region director immediately put his staff to work in unburned portions of the forest. Professional rangers and domestic and international volunteers are thinning, pruning and creating fire breaks, and removing wood residue and tree branches that could ignite. They are also developing alternative hiking and biking trails while damaged ones are rebuilt.
Come spring, Bonneh says, new tree growth in the burned areas must be thinned to lessen the competition for scarce water. "Selective thinning increases biodiversity," he says. "Natural selection favors pines, which are the quickest to grow, but we are interested in forests with a wide variety of trees."
It will take $50 million to $100 million to accomplish all this, and Jewish relief organizations across the world have sprung into action to supplement what the Israel government can provide. The JNF in North America kicked off a $10 million campaign and joined with the Israel Tourism Ministry to solicit donations from both Jewish and Christian US communities in anticipation of Tu B'Shevat. The American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee is aiming to raise some $6 million.
Caring for Carmel residents
Voluntary organizations were also on the scene to provide help. The Israel-based Global Jewish Assistance and Relief Network, for example, distributed more than 10,000 sandwiches, bottled water and Hanukkah doughnuts during the fire, and provided dozens of families with pre-paid food cards and other monetary assistance.
College students from the Interdisciplinary Center (IDC) in Herzliya came north to help rebuild kindergartens at Kibbutz Beit Oren. Hundreds of graduates of Yemin Orde Youth Village descended there to repair damaged structures including a clinic, library and residences.
Many of those evacuated were able to return home within a day or two, but about 250 residences were destroyed, and many lacked fire insurance. The total cost of property and infrastructure damages caused by the Carmel fire is estimated at 120 million shekels.
The government set up mobile structures for displaced families and provided NIS 2,500 of emergency assistance to every displaced person, mostly in the communities of Kibbutz Beit Oren, Ein Hod, Yemin Orde Youth Village and Ussafiya. Families of firefighters and Prison Services cadets killed or injured in the fire will receive financial benefits similar to those provided to the families of fallen IDF soldiers. Another NIS 450,000 went to the social welfare departments in the Ussafiya, Tirat Hacarmel and Carmel Coast Regional Council area to cover clothing and footwear, medicines and food.
Social work professors from the University of Haifa are providing staff training and free therapeutic counseling through the Regional Council of Hof Hacarmel, and Israel's Social Welfare and Social Services Ministry mobilized social workers from the northern district to reinforce the local social welfare departments.
Izhaki, director of the Center for the Study of the Carmel, says the multidisciplinary center is working to improve the relationship between the Druze population and the biosphere in which many of them reside. "People are blaming the entire Druze community for the fire, and we must find ways to help them live in peace with the reserve," he says. One of the strategies will be to demonstrate how they can benefit economically from their surroundings, such as developing businesses based on eco-tourism.
The KKL-JNF is encouraging all area residents to "adopt" forests adjacent to their homes, help take care of them and become part of the decision-making process as the re-growth continues. "We will be meeting with the people of Ein Hod, Ussafiya, Nir Etzion, Beit Oren and Yemin Orde and talking with them about strengthening their bond to the forest that's being rehabilitated, environmental education and other ecological topics," Bonneh promises.
