Community Events in Twenty-One Nature Reserves in Palestine

The community events were funded by the EU and were implemented in cooperation with the Environment Quality Authority (EQA) under the patronage of H.E. Adalah Atteereh, chairperson of EQA, who took part in three of these community events.

Around 1200 participants from different governorates such as Bethlehem, Hebron, Ramallah, Nablus, Tulkarem, and Jerusalem participated in the events. The participants were families, children, women, students, youth, experts, institutions and professionals of different interests in wildlife photography, environmental studies, research, politics and others.  

The nature reserves are located both in the West Bank and in Gaza. They represent different categories of nature reserves on governmental and lands and were in Areas A, B and C. Local municipalities from the nearby villages received the participants near the nature reserves. The events gained the attention and support of the municipal leadership and local communities, thereby raising the importance of the respective nature reserves for local villages.

Different activities were implemented in the community events to portray the potential of the nature reserves. Tour guides trained by the EU project guided the groups and helped during flora and fauna identification. Remarkably, the activities also helped cleaning the nature reserves Beitillu, Fasayel and Auja, where participants collected the massively occurring littering and waste dumping. Such activities aim at building the ethical and national responsibility of the participants towards nature.

In the 13 community events, Hanns Seidel Foundation invited everyone to learn more about the nature reserves, flora and fauna, nature conservation and the ecotourism destinations through the website www.mahmiyat.ps.