Jerusalem urban park may protect free-roaming gazelles
Haaretz, December 7, 2006
By Zafrir Rinat
After defending the little valley next to their homes against development, the residents of the Jerusalem neighborhoods of Givat Mordechai and Katamonim will now become partners in the plan to turn the valley into an urban nature park, the first of its kind in Israel.
A few weeks ago, a group of environmental organizations, headed by the Society for the Protection of Nature in Israel (SPNI) and the residents' committee of the two neighborhoods presented the plans for the park to the planning and construction commissions.
A herd of gazelles has made the park its home. "The sight of these gazelles moves me every time," Michal Regev, a resident of Katamonim, says. "Sometimes you sit at the bus stop and watch them in their natural surroundings."
Some years ago, real estate developers sought to take over part of the area to build 1,200 housing units. They were staved off by a successful grassroots campaign following which the Jerusalem District Planning and Construction Commission withheld its approval for the plan.
The residents and the ecological groups have now initiated a plan that will seek statutory protection for the area in the future and open only part of it to visitors.
"We had meetings and handed out flyers to the residents with the plans," Regev says, "There were tough discussions between those who thought the area shouldn't be touched and those who thought it should be opened so people could enjoy it," she said.
Regev says the residents were given a number of options, and the one ultimately chosen conserves most of the area in its present state, but creates a city park in one section.
"The idea of an urban park is known elsewhere in the world, but it is new in Israel," SPNI Jerusalem landscape architect Yael Hammerman says.
The park will have paths and bike trails, as well as a periphery trail, with lookouts on the gazelles, which now number 22 and have managed to persevere despite the small area they inhabit. The park will also have a cafe with a view of the valley. Ancient agricultural terraces will be conserved and restored in part of the park.
Several obstacles still threaten the plan, among them desire by developers to build along edges of the valley. The city planning commissions have recognized the urban park in the new Jerusalem master plan, defining it as an area set aside for the protection of urban biodiversity.
According to the plan, five different sites in the capital have been pinpointed to protect the capital's flora and fauna and strengthen the concept that human beings are a part of a wider natural system; "gazelle valley" as it is known to the locals, is one of them.
If the park is approved, its founders will face a major task: ensuring that large numbers of visitors do not wreak chaos and make it impossible for the gazelles to continue living in the area in tranquillity.
In another location in Israel, gazelles that inhabited a small area in the Sharon Beach National Park were killed by dogs whose owners let them run loose in the park.
"The main threat to the herd of gazelles in the valley are the jackals that roam all over the city, " Amir Balaban, the SPNI expert on urban nature sites, says. "The city has tried to keep them from getting into the valley, so far with only partial success."
Balaban says the main advantage of the establishment of the park is the ability to manage the area. The park will contain buffer zones between the areas inhabited by the gazelles and those open to visitors. With regard to the risk to the herd from dogs, he says, "we will do what we do now. We will explain and ask people not to come near the herd with their dogs. We have been holding activities in the park for six years, and we only had to call the police once when somebody came into the park with a dog clearly for the purpose of hunting."
