Giving nature a helping hand

Ezra Yasur enters a dense thicket next to Lake Hula in the Upper Galilee. "This is a branched bur reed," he says. "It flowers beautifully and is now in danger of becoming extinct. We are trying to spread it," he added, holding a leaf of the plant.

A few seconds later, he bends down and pulls out a weed that resembles clover. However, Yasur notes, "In contrast to clover, this has four leaves. It is a dwarf water clover, which has disappeared almost completely. With the help of a member of Kibbutz Gonen, I restored it here, to the Hula Valley." For the past 15 years, Yasur, 71, from Kibbutz Malkiya - "a farmer from the day I was born" - has been working to reclaim land near Lake Hula. In the course of his work, he began to devote himself to restoring various types of flora that disappeared from the area when the lake was drained. What to the casual observer may look like a disorderly outbreak of different plants is viewed by Yasur as an entire universe in which the plants are engaged in a constant struggle between the weak and the strong, the triumphant and the vanquished. The decision at the beginning of the 1950s to drain 60,000 dunams (15,000 acres) of the Hula Valley in order to create farmland sealed the fate for an array of plants and animals. "There has been a big change since the Hula was drained," says Yasur. "Natural vegetation, such as reeds and rushes, which cannot compete with other plants, is constantly collapsing."

Before the drainage project, there were 96 types of plants here, he notes, some of which disappeared, but since then 150 plants have penetrated the area. Among them are plants that are not indigenous to the locale, became dominant and shunted aside the local plants.

"Even though extreme modifications were implemented here, the war is not lost," Yasur insists. "Our task is to intervene and restore indigenous plants that once flourished here and disappeared over time. Nature will not come back to itself on its own - we have to help." In the past, he admits, people ridiculed him for "'playing with decorative gardens,' but the fact is that we took a pond lily from here and now it is self-sustaining. We waged a nearly 10-year battle - nutria ate it and other plants pushed it away at first."

The struggle requires patience and dedication. Still, Yasur does not resent the weeds that embitter the lives of the valley's original flora. He admires the way they fight back. "There are no plants that I hate, that is not part of my lexicon; there are only those I love less."

Yasur points to a net that has been placed in the Jordan River, which flows into Lake Hula, to protect a rather wretched-looking plant. "Come back next year and you will see how beautiful it is," he promises. "This is the white water lily." Its restoration to this region is considered a personal achievement of Yasur's. The plant, which was preserved only in botanical gardens, is now growing again in its natural habitat in Lake Hula. "For 10 years, all we had were failures, but in the end we succeeded," he smiles.

Yasur's kingdom of greenhouses and experimental farms is located on the fringes of the visitors' center at the Hula Nature Reserve.

"This is a plant of the rush family," he says as he caresses a plant in a pond. "And here is the brake fern, which is found only in the Hula Reserve and is slowly disappearing. This is Egyptian sugar cane and here is the Hula nettle."

He moves from plant to plant and from pond to pond, like a living journey through a lexicon of flora. Summing up his credo, Yasur says, "Man has conquered the planet and nature is no longer able to defend itself, so it is our task to help it."