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Last update - 18:27 28/08/2008 A world in a grain of sand By Amir Zohar Tags: Arava desert The good gerbil and the bad gerbil are two species of small rodents that are engaged in a struggle for survival in the sands around Samar, a kibbutz in the Arava desert. The good gerbil lives in the natural sands of Samar and Kibbutz Elifaz, in the estuary of the Timna Rift, and is content with little - a few leaves saturated in water, and golden dunes. The bad gerbil is the materialistic one. It likes large quantities of leaves, and when they are available, due to human intervention, its brutal character comes to the fore: It forces the good gerbil out of the "cultured" dunes into those on the margins. "The balance of terror between these two guys reflects the thesis that I proved in my research," says Roi Talbi, a zoologist and expert in desert animals who is a member of Kibbutz Samar. "Wherever there was human intervention in nature, be it in the form of pumping sewage or farming, I found that the bad gerbil overcame the good gerbil and multiplied. Where there was a natural balance, the presence of the bad gerbil declined and the good gerbil multiplied. The conclusion is that the bad gerbil is incapable of living in the harsh conditions of true nature in the desert. In an analogy to our economy, the bad gerbil is like the last of the entrepreneurs, who needs state assistance in every privatization." The struggle for survival being waged by rodents in burrows is a perfect metaphor for the bureaucratic wrangling underway directly above them. Government ministries, environmental organizations, scientists, Arava residents and their supporters from around the country are all battling, either to preserve the sand of the last great sea of dunes in the Arava, or to sell it to real-estate developers in Eilat. Advertisement The construction industry in Eilat currently has three significant sources for fine, high-quality natural sand: Mishor Rotem near Dimona, the Samar sands and the sands of the northern Arava (which were transferred to Jordan in the peace treaty with that country). Another source of sand is a quarry that has been dug near Eilat - cheaper sand, at NIS 20 a ton, but of inferior quality. Excavating and transporting a ton of sand from Dimona to Eilat costs NIS 75, but the high-quality sand from Samar and Jordan can be had for only NIS 60 a ton. The result is that the Samar site, which is about 40 kilometers from Eilat, is preferred by the Israel Lands Administration (ILA), the National Infrastructure Ministry and the developers; whereas the environmentalists and the local residents want this dune to be left alone. The Samar site lies east of the date groves of two kibbutzim, Samar and Elifaz, on the Israel-Jordan border. It once extended across about seven square kilometers, but after allocations of land for farming and sand quarrying, barely 2.5 square kilometers remain, in a narrow strip divided into three parts: the northern segment, which has been declared a nature reserve; the central segment, which the greens also want declared a nature reserve, but which is designated for quarrying; and the southern segment, of which half has been annihilated in the wake of quarrying in recent years, and whose other half the ILA also wants to turn into a sand quarry. "The streams in the southern Arava do not flow south to the sea, but eastward," says geologist Dr. Hanan Ginat of Kibbutz Samar, explaining how the dunes were formed. "In the past, the sand arrived from the Timna Valley in floods, as alluvium that included pebbles, fine sand and clay. The fine sand, the only type that is good for construction, was heaped into dunes by the wind that did the sorting and carried it from the mouth of the stream." But nature is now less able to renew the sand reserves in the Arava. "There are far fewer floods, in part because of global warming," Ginat says. "And, in addition, the kibbutzim, Samar and Elifaz, planted huge date groves in the middle of the area, which also block the diminished flow of sand from the Timna Rift. The result is that the alluvial path has changed and now bypasses the area of the dunes." Ginat launched the struggle to save the dunes in 1997. It has not always been successful, because the ILA, with the authorization of government planning departments, constantly cut into the sands. The worst affected was the southern segment, constituting about a fifth of the total, which was completely leveled. "What is left for us to propose is that they continue to quarry at the existing site, but in depth," Ginat says. "A study I conducted there, together with the geologist Dr. Amir Eidelman, proved that there is still good sand - albeit of a slightly lower quality - beneath the quarried area. The fact is that when the contractor was unable to quarry in the other segments, he simply dug deep into the existing site, even though he was forbidden to do so, proving the soundness of our thesis. But the ILA and the Infrastructure Ministry simply do not want to engage in artificial sorting, because it is expensive for the entrepreneurs. They want the ready-made dunes, in which the wind has already done the sorting naturally. Their demand is contrary to all the principles of sustainable development, which also consider the needs of future generations." Not all the sand goes for construction. Farmers in the northern Arava also use sand, and in even larger quantities, as a base for their hothouses. The relative shortage of sand has not yet given rise to huge thefts and violent struggles for control between criminals, as it has in the coastal plain region. But here it is precisely state authorities - the ILA and the Infrastructure Ministry - that are behind the initiative to expand the quarrying, for the financial benefit of contractors in Eilat and farmers of the Arava, but at the expense of rare natural resources. In this connection, the ILA spokeswoman, Ortal Tzabar, notes that the increasing demand for sand generated a wave of thefts, which led the ILA to step up its plan. However, a request for concrete information about the thefts went unanswered. In the meantime, a tender to quarry sands at Samar issued in May by the ILA and the Infrastructure Ministry infuriated the Interior Ministry. Officials there maintained that it was wrong to issue the tender before a number of conditions, decided on by professional bodies in January 2007, were met. "The ILA asked for a year to carry out the obligations," the Interior Ministry spokeswoman, Sabine Haddad, said. "But although more than a year and a half has passed, we have not yet received information on the subject." The ILA, which was quick to issue a statement to the press on the success of the tender and the interest taken in it by more than 20 contractors, says it was surprised by the Interior Ministry's reaction. According to the ILA, the tender was based on an authorized plan for the territory and on an additional authorization by the committee on planning principles, which discussed the plan to build a rail line to Eilat. The Interior Ministry reacted to this curtly: "Our response stands." The ILA position is that the state must supply the sand needed for construction in Eilat, amounting to about 160,000 tons a year, and the needs of the farmers in the northern Arava, who, the ILA estimates, will need some 10 million tons of sand in the coming decade to re-layer the hothouses. As for the conditions laid down by the professional team (digging in depth at the existing site and examining the request for the area to be declared a nature reserve), the ILA stated: "The Nature and Parks Authority obligated itself to execute drilling that would make possible laboratory tests of the subterranean material, but did not do so ... According to geological advice we received, the subterranean material is inferior to the material of the sand dunes ... In addition, deep digging is not suitable for the future route of Israel Railways ... Regarding the nature reserve, the ILA will consider its position if and when the plan is submitted to the planning committees." Beyond the conflict with the Interior Ministry, the ILA position is not consistent with the facts, at least as they are described by the established green organizations. "We never gave the ILA a commitment to execute a subterranean sand quality examination," says Guy Alon, the director of the Eilat District of the Nature and Parks Authority. "The authority actually offered its help to the ILA in this regard, because it is important for us to preserve the territories, but our offer was rejected." Alon, who is in charge of law enforcement against the sand thieves, together with the ILA, adds: "I am not aware of sand thefts in our region, which extends north from Eilat to Kilometer 101, nor have I heard of thefts north of our district. I don't understand the ILA's urgency - on top of which the primary momentum of building in Eilat is already over. Half the city was built without a grain of sand from Samar, which means that good solutions exist." The director of the Southern District of the Society for the Protection of Nature in Israel (SPNI), Shai Technai, discerns a disparity in the approach of the residents of the southern Arava, who are against quarrying - "because their economy is based on date groves" - and the farmers of the northern Arava, who are in favor of sand quarrying at Samar "in order to reduce transportation costs." Nature and Parks Authority official Alon: "We are not against quarrying, and the authorized plan also permits it, but before doing damage, let's first please exhaust all the alternatives." The SPNI is also unable to fathom the ILA's moves; its legal adviser has written to the ILA asking for explanations, but has yet to receive replies. The head of the Hevel Eilot Regional Council, Udi Gat, fired off a furious letter to the new ILA director general, Yaron Bibi. "I want to lodge a sharp protest against the tender," he wrote earlier this month. After listing the violations of the professional body's decisions, he concluded: "I want to demand the immediate annulment of the tender, or at least its suspension." Roi Talbi, who is leading the struggle against the ILA, was born in Rishon Letzion to a traditionalist Yemenite family; photographs of his grandparents hang on the wall above his computer in his trailer at Samar. He arrived in the kibbutz 13 years ago as part of a Nahal paramilitary brigade group made up of former members of SPNI trekking groups. (He is the only one of the group still living in the kibbutz.) After obtaining a bachelor's degree in biology, he did his M.A., on the ecology of the sands, at the Institute for Desert Research at Midreshet Sde Boker in the Negev. He now teaches at the Arava Institute for Environmental Studies in Kibbutz Ketura and also works as a packer of the area's majhoul dates. Talbi's pet subject is the Persian haloxylon, a plant that constitutes the axis of the natural food chain in the Samar region. In the course of drilling during his research, he found small reservoirs of groundwater at a depth of six meters. "That is the haloxylon's source of life. It is a protected plant that exists only in the Arava sands," he explains. "This bush, which has roots going 10 meters deep, gray branches and thin, fleshy leaves, is the host for a whole population of creatures: rodents, birds, insects and rabbits - all of them vegetarians that eat its leaves and fruit. But lizards eat the insects and snakes eat the lizards. The large predators - mammals such as foxes, sand cats (now extinct), wolves and hyenas that arrive from afar, prey on whatever is available to them on the surface. "The Arava," he continues, "is considered one of the 10 hottest and driest deserts in the world, and it also suffers from a high level of radiation because of its characteristic whiteness. So during the day in the summer, the animals burrow into the sand, which is insulating and airy. But in the evening, a whole show of animals gets underway here," he says, visibly enjoying the memory of his experiences in the field. "The Samar animals like extremes. They live only in the sands, with wind, and they dislike water and vegetation. The proof is that when water is introduced from an artificial source, such as sewage in the northern segment, where there is more vegetation, the bad animals from the Arava and the Negev go there and displace the Samar animals. This is what is happening in the northern nature reserve, because of its proximity to farmland. "In fact," Talbi notes, "if I apply my desert thesis in full, then I am also against growing the wonderful majhoul dates, which sell in Europe for a euro each. True, I myself work with them and make a living from them, but maybe I should be kicked out of the kibbutz because I am angry at the damage the grove is causing to the zoology of the dunes." Talbi's struggle has the professional and social backing of geologist Hanan Ginat, who has lived in Samar since 1979, when he, too, arrived there as part of a Nahal group. Ginat, married and the father of five children, was born in Jerusalem's Katamon neighborhood, and together with his son Amir took part in the initiative of fans of the Hapoel Jerusalem soccer team, who last season established Hapoel Katamon as an alternative team. After obtaining an undergraduate degree in education and teaching, he switched to geology for his master's. He did the research for his Ph.D., which he obtained from Ben Gurion University of the Negev, in the Arava, "at a time when there were still floods here, which there no longer are, and dunes, which have now stopped wandering because of the lack of rain." He now leads SPNI training courses and serves as the scientific director of the Dead Sea and Arava Science Center. A book, "Geology of the Negev," which he co-authored with the researchers Ezra Zilberman and Yoav Avni, will soon be published. In charge of its production is Dr. Amir Eidelman, a member of the executive board of SPNI and a geological adviser to ILA. "When the ILA wanted the land, we drew up a report together and suggested to them that they dig deep in the existing area," Ginat says. "Eidelman even brought a tractor from Eilat, with which we dug a pit and proved that the deep sand is just as good. How come he is suddenly working as a geological adviser to the ILA and changing his opinion completely? This is a salient conflict of interest." Eidelman, for his part, says: "I started to advise the ILA 15 years ago, and it has nothing to do with my being a member of the executive board, on which I serve on a volunteer basis. In the report with Ginat, the subterranean sand sample was higher than the usual criterion for construction sand (9-15 percent, as compared to 3-5 percent). Still, it was clear to us that this sand could be exploited, and it was exploited, even though it is not the best. The report I have now conveyed to the ILA is based on the examination from that time and on a recent examination, and the results are specified in the documents of the tender. In the report for the tender I informed the contractors that only 30 percent is above ground and 70 percent is below ground." Then why start a new site instead of going deeper with the existing excavation? "Because of the opposition of the planning committees, since the area is designated for farming, and the objection of the drainage authorities to the creation of pits in the area." Earlier this month, the ILA conducted a tour for contractors at Samar. Talbi and his friends had created a presentation and circulated a petition in the weeks before the visit, and about 50 demonstrators showed up in the broiling midday heat of the Arava with posters and whistles to greet the 20 candidates for the tender and the representatives of the ILA, headed by Dr. Amir Eidelman. Talbi: "The truth is that it is hard to get Arava residents actively involved. Most of the demonstrators were not from the kibbutzim, but from all over the country. Not all the locals even signed the petition. We got most of the reactions from the north and center of the country - maybe the northerners are more developed when it comes to this issue."W Bookmark to del.icio.us   Voice of peace silenced Israeli peace pioneer Abie Nathan dies aged 81. DeadSeaScrolls.com World's oldest Bible fragments to be available online.

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