Just after dawn in Israel's Negev Desert, a peculiar phenomenon is occurring: a light drizzle is threatening destruction. As minute raindrops roll across the unabsorbent desert crust, they join to form floodwaters that will carry away tons of precious topsoil, destroying miles of grazing land downstream.

For more than 20 years, ecologists like Uriel Safriel, director of the Jacob Blaustein Institute for Desert Research (BIDR), have been pointing to growing patches of devastation throughout Israel, trying to draw the attention of politicians and American fundraisers to the warning signs of the far greater land loss the country faces if its inhabitants don't "learn how to live in and with the desert, rather than exploit it beyond the point of sustainability."

Israel is more than two-thirds desert: the grassy hills and scrublands of the semiarid northern Negev, which get four to eight inches of rain per year; the arid central Negev, with two to three inches; and the hyperarid mountains above the Red Sea, with between zero and one inch of dew. Droughts lasting weeks to years are common; windstorms are daily events. These diverse drylands are Israel's last frontiers for the settlements, agriculture, and recreation needed to sustain a growing population.

Yet these are also the country's most fragile lands - like all deserts, easily damaged and slow to recover. After 50 years of trying to "make the desert bloom" into something resembling European forests and farmland, Israel is faced with the inescapable reality that the Negev remains an easily degraded arid region where the fine line between a healthy, productive desert and barren wasteland is easily crossed.

Israel on UN's Desertification List

Israel is counted among the 100 dryland countries in the world facing desertification - defined by the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (CCD) as the degradation of land in dry areas to the point where it can no longer support human or other life, and caused primarily by human activities and climatic variations.

If this is not widely acknowledged, it's partly because most people can't tell the difference between a thriving desert and a damaged one. "They expect to see the moving sands of the Sahara when we talk about desertification," says Kenton Miller, director of land development with the World Resources Institute (WRI) in Washington, D.C. Yet desertification isn't always obvious: in many dryland regions, much of the productivity is hidden within the thin soil crust.

In Israel, the most common symptoms are large gullies and patches of barren, rocky soil. "Signs of erosion and wildlife loss are visible throughout the Negev - to those who know what they are looking for," explains David Ward, director of the Ramon Science Center at the BIDR. During a two-hour drive along the two-lane highway that bisects the Negev east and west, Ward stops more than twenty times to point these out. First is a broad stretch of barren soil, stripped to the stone by overgrazing. Second is a twenty-foot-wide gully at the base of a small canyon - "previously one of the Bedouins' favorite grazing sites because of the high-quality soil and plant life," Ward explains. "Floodwaters can carry away tons of water in one evening, leaving a wadi (dried-up stream bed) that will continue to erode with the afternoon windstorms and occasional rains. The stability of this soil may have been undermined by years of flooding from nearby irrigation." The third stop is next to one of the many uncovered quarries where stonecutters removed rock for construction in Jerusalem and left the eviscerated remains to collect sand from the surrounding area.

"No one is even considering restoring these lands because they don't see the desert as anything other than a wasteland," says Ward. "They don't see the desert as the delicate ecosystem that it is. Nor do they understand the consequences of abusing it."

When degraded, desert land becomes less resilient to climate change, soil becomes less productive, vegetation is damaged, food production drops, wildlife suffers, and surrounding regions are affected by downstream flooding, erosion, dust storms, and air pollution. Famines that sweep across northern Africa each year are the results of desertification; the possible cost to Israel is as yet unknown.

Who or What Is Responsible for Desertification?

Globally, desertification is attributed to human activities such as deforestation, overgrazing, overcultivation, and poor irrigation practices. These undermine the desert's fertility by stripping away the diverse elements it needs to withstand drought and other climate variations. Often, the damage isn't obvious until a storm or drought hits.

Israel may be the only country that has actually "pushed back" small regions of desert through tree-planting and other measures. Yet, inappropriate use of land in the Negev remains a widespread problem. In spite of the Jewish National Fund (JNF)'s attempts to make the desert bloom (in small patches), many people are still using popular practices for agriculture and settlement that can't be sustained. Overgrazing, overcultivation, and expanding urban contribute to soil erosion and the depletion of Israel's aquifers. Much of the area was traditionally rangeland; as the Bedouin left, most of it became undergrazed. Recently, however, Bedouin resettlement along roads has led to localized overgrazing.

Some of the least-expected contributors to soil erosion and salinization may include Israel's often-touted modern methods of intense cultivation, including such celebrated agrotechnology methods as drip irrigation and brackish-water farming.

Unexpected News

Is desertification a hot news item in Israel? "No," according to Menachem Sachs, formerly the Director of Afforestation for the JNF. The public is confused by such news: after all, Israel is still living the legend of making the desert bloom.

After the state of Israel was declared in 1948, David Ben-Gurion, its first prime minister and a leading visionary, looked to the Negev as the solution to the tiny country's future land needs as its population grew. His vision involved eliminating the desert, which he regarded as a barren and hostile enemy: "We must conquer the desert before it conquers us."

Ben-Gurion turned to the JNF, a nonprofit organization established in 1901, to acquire land for the Jewish people's resettlement of Israel. Using funds raised mostly in the U.S. and Europe, the JNF has focused on land reclamation, afforestation, and site preparation for agriculture and settlement, construction of roads, reservoirs, and parks, and - more recently - soil conservation and halting desertification, and now manages 97% of Israel's land.

As the JNF began planting trees in the northern, wetter, and more populated regions of Israel, it funded agricultural and forestry research to develop technologies for desert settlement. In the mid-1960s, the organization began planting agricultural fields and immense forests, largely of exotic European pine trees, across the northern Negev hills. It piped in water, created new fertilizers, and started to "green the desert." Backed by European views of what the land should look like, European and American-trained foresters and agronomists believed that they had started to "reclaim" the desert. Israel and the world saw trees and green. Today, more than 40,000 people (8% of the population) live in the Negev, mostly along the coast and in the semiarid northern portion, the most fertile region.

In the past two decades, Israel has seen more agro-technology inventions leap from drawing board into the field than any other nation. Israel's reputation for developing methods using tree planting, saline-tolerant plants, drip irrigation, and improved water harvesting is legendary.

Was Making the Desert Bloom a Sustainable Dream?

Impressive as the JNF's work has been, many scientists question whether Israel's dream was ever sustainable, either financially or ecologically.

Many scientists liken maintaining the artificial forests and agriculture in Israel's arid regions to managing giant hydroponic gardens. Each plot requires constant input of resources: truckloads of sand, soil, fertilizers, and piped-in water. When erosion occurs, the JNF steps in to patch it up. "Countries like the United States won't go in this direction because it's dependent on outside funding and resources," says the WRI's Miller. Scientists are even more concerned about ecological consequences. Intensive cultivation - even with drip irrigation - involves heavy input of water and fertilizers, which cause erosion and over-salinization, contributing to desertification.

"[The desert] was never meant to be green," according to Ward. "Ecologically, it makes no sense to plant non-native species." Many introduced plants can't regenerate under arid conditions, so their limited benefits to the desert are temporary. Moreover, exotic flora and fauna are thought to damage the delicate ecosystem by changing its biodiversity. Scientists suspect that the exotic forests that have displaced native scrublands in the northern Negev are responsible for the increased rarity of some native species, including several birds and mammals found only in Israel. Furthermore, biodiversity is severely damaged with the destruction of delicate dryland habitats such as sand dunes (whose sand is used in agriculture).

There is general concern that species loss may remove links vital to the desert ecosystem and begin a spiral of deterioration. The BIDR's Safriel has become one of Israel's spokespersons on the issue of maintaining biodiversity in arid lands. "The real strength of the desert ecosystem lies in its unique mix of plants, animals, and other organisms. Biodiversity provides the desert with insurance when environmental conditions change."

A desert ecosystem has a unique mix of species specially adapted to harsh environments and climate change, each with a wealth of genetic traits that equip it to cope with change. At any particular place or time, the genes in certain individuals make them better able to withstand environmental change than other members of their species. The biodiversity of deserts is low, but individual species are genetically diverse. The mix of desert species is also instrumental in making the desert ecosystem function and providing services such as recharging groundwater, preventing flooding, and conserving soil. The problem is compounded by the fact that the Negev has been broken up into small fragments; it is no longer a complete system. "We're not preserving whole systems, but tiny pieces," says Safriel.

Scientists and global experts in desertification question the very premise of Ben-Gurion's dream. The concept of taming the desert is deeply grounded in Zionist ideology and reinforced by the Bible. It is also based on a very European assumption that it is automatically good to turn pristine desert into forested landscape. But, "the desert is not a 'wasteland' to be tamed," explains Safriel. "It is its own uniquely rich ecosystem with a high level of biodiversity - a thriving, though fragile, ecosystem. Israel's developers ignored the fact that the lands they were developing are desert."

Searching for a Solution

Forty-two years ago, Ben-Gurion told his countrymen about his dream of a desert research institute - "a place of learning . . . where research could help Israel settle the desert." The BIDR is a small cluster of modest, sand-colored buildings deep in the Negev, perched at the edge of a splendid canyon-size wadi overlooking the ancient Nabatean city of Avdat. Initially, the institute hired agronomists, hydrologists, and soil scientists to develop agro-technologies and other methods to "conquer the desert."

Ironically, Ben-Gurion's investment also provided the seeds for today's ecologically oriented research. Today the institute employs physicists and applied mathematicians, hydrologists and microbiologists, social scientists and architects to generate practices and technologies for settling the desert, as originally conceived. In parallel with this, however, is a newer research program focused on understanding how the desert ecosystem works, and what factors contribute to its productivity and biodiversity.

In 1997, the BIDR opened a new Center for Combating Desertification. The center's battle is being fought in the field, in the lab, from satellites, and in petri dishes. An army of land-resource managers, remote-sensing specialists, botanists, ecologists, agronomists, zoologists, geographers, hydrologists, and geologists now address Israel's need for a sustainable future.

A further sign of change is the JNF's decision during the past decade to join forces with the BIDR and other institutions to support ecological research. The JNF has also taken the lead in international collaborations with other dryland nations and organizations seeking solutions to desertification, such as the International Arid Lands Consortium.

Learning to Live with the Desert

The urgency of these issues will only grow. At the current rate of population growth, northern Israel may soon reach standing-room-only densities, and pressure to build more settlements in the Negev is intense. Scientists don't wonder if the desert communities will grow, they wonder: Where will the settlements be placed; how will Israel minimize the desertification process? Though the science of understanding how to manage deserts for sustainability is still in its infancy, land-use decisions are needed now - ready or not.

Corliss Karasov is a science writer who developed an interest in deserts and desertification issues while living and working in three of the regions facing risks of desertification: the Negev Desert in Israel, eastern Australia, and the American Southwest.

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Endlinks

Dessicating Dreams: Is Making the Desert Bloom Sustainable? - see also this HMS Beagle Opinion by Uriel Safriel.

Combating Desertification: Conservation and Development of Dryland Resources - extensive documents and multimedia presentations. From the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations.

41 Percent of Earth's Surface Eaten Up by Desertification - article from the December 14, 1998 issue of AfricaNews.

Combating Desertification: The Israeli Experience - presentation from Israel's Ministry of Foreign Affairs Center for International Cooperation.