Water Treaties
Last week’s blog outlined the influence water can have on local security situations, specifically its role in conflicts in the Middle East. As the water wars rationale implies, these so-called water wars are based on water scarcity, competitive use and the countries being enemies due to a wider conflict. Picking up arms is not the […]
Water wars in the Middle East
“If many of the wars this century were about oil, those of the next century will be over water,”1 Ismail Serageldin, vice-president of the World Bank at the time, declared to Newsweek in 1995. Alongside the degradation of air quality and soil depletion, water resources’ quantity and quality are already defined as part of these […]
Creating hope for the future at FoEME’s youth water trustee camp
As part of Friends of the Earth Middle East’s Good Water Neighbors youth program, yearly camps are organized where young members of different neighboring communities from Jordan, Palestine, and Israel come together to learn about their shared environment. On December 14th and 15th, such a camp was held at the Sharhabil Bin Hassneh EcoPark where […]
Municipality’s staff become experts in groundwater protection
Municipal staff from communities in the Jordan Valley will have all the knowledge and skills they need to plot, evaluate and act upon environmental hazards – particularly those affecting groundwater – after a GIS and hydrogeology training course held recently.
An international exchange: Kosovar delegation touring FoEME water initiatives
Earlier this year, six Good Water Neighbors (GWN) coordinators traveled to Kosovo as part of a partnership and exchange forged with the Forum of Civic Initiatives (FIQ). Last month we had a chance to host the second part of this exchange here in our region.
Young people develop environmental awareness
Sixteen young people from eight Jordan Valley communities took their first steps along the road to developing greater environmental awareness recently, when they participated in a Friends of the Earth Middle East (FoEME) community Geographic Information System (GIS) youth course.
Cross border cooperation over industrial wastewater pollution – a Good Water Neighbors priority initiative
FoEME’s Good Water Neighbors project (GWN) launched one decade ago to raise awareness of the water problems shared by Jordanians, Palestinians, and Israelis.Over the last months, FoEME staff reached out to stakeholders, decision makers and funding bodies to identify the priority projects needing advancement in those communities. This consultation resulted in the development of Priority […]
FoEME’s Reaction to the Downscaling of the Jordan Red Sea Project
Friends of the Earth Middle East (FoEME) is satisfied with recently published news regarding the downscaling of the Jordan Red Sea Project (JRSP), proposed in 2009. As Jordanian Director Munqeth Mehyar states, “they admit that the project is inefficient, and we have always been saying there are better and more sustainable alternatives. There are other […]
Environmental Education
Although opinions differ about the existence of global warming, fact remains that human activity has a profound effect on our natural surroundings. These repercussions are potentially irreversible, and widespread. The clearest and most talked about example of such effects is of course the slow destruction of the Ozone layer. Additionally, human life and development have […]
Birds of a Feather
Every year farmers in the Jordan Valley lose the majority of their crops to pests. Through regional cooperation between Jordanian, Palestinian and Israeli farmers, a solution to the problem has been found in the form of none other than barn owls. In sharing and promoting the use of barn owls and kestrels as biological pest […]