Green Intifada

Aquaponics - eFISHient food production in Palestine

2011-11-19T17:00:00.003+02:00

Another post from our volunteers, Carly and Jean... their blog is: http://makingsenseofthings.info

Aquaponics in the West Bank

During our stay at Bustan Qaraaqa in Palestine, we have been lucky enough to volunteer one day a week with Phil and Lorena from Byspokes on aquaponic systems (their website is where the following information comes from). Aquaponics is a combination of aquaculture, which is growing fish in water, with hydroponics, which is growing plants in a liquid. Since they arrived in the West Bank in July 2010 they have been researching, developing and trialing the FIRST EVER aquaponic system constructed behind the Wall!

They have been developing integrated aquaculture/irrigation systems and aquaponic systems to enhance food security in rural areas of Palestine, where as much as 44% of the population are chronically food insecure. In general, water and space for agriculture here are in short supply, and this is nowhere more apparent than in high density urban areas such as refugee camps. For the last 60 years, the 27 refugee camps in the Palestine have become increasingly densely populated – now over 673,000 people live in these camps in the West Bank and Gaza. Unemployment can reach up to 80% in the camps, and with no land for agriculture or gardening it is almost impossible for residents to produce any food domestically, creating a massive dependence on external aid.

Two of the biggest problems facing the Palestinian agricultural sector are water availability and space available for cultivation. Palestinians have been denied access to the Jordan River and its water since the start of the occupation in 1967, and although the West Bank sits on top of (and is the recharge area for) the mountain aquifer, 80% of the water in this resource is utilized by Israel. Palestinian abstraction is strictly controlled, and as a consequence the only way that Palestinians can meet their water needs is to buy water back from the Israeli water company Mekorot (for example, this accounted for 39% of Palestinian water consumption in 2005).

Aquaponics removes the need for fertile ground as they can be constructed pretty much anywhere – even on a rooftop - which is why Phil and Lorena saw that these systems could be so useful here in Palestine. Due to its recirculating nature, an aquaponics system is extremely water efficient and also a very space efficient means of fresh food production. Here is a simple diagram showing how aquaponics works...

Aquaponics at Bustan Qaraaqa

Phil and Lorena have been exploring lots of different construction and operation methods to develop an aquaponic system that works well, and is appropriate for, the West Bank. The systems they have implemented:

Uses cheap, locally available materials – mainly re-claimed or re-cycled, in line with the philosophy of everything else here at Bustan Qaraaqa
Works with the extremely high alkalinity and high pH of the groundwater in the West Bank
Grows plants which thrive in the local conditions, and are already part of the local diet
Enables production of plants with high water requirements even during the driest times of the year
Offers the opportunity to grow “exotic” plant species that are not consumed locally at present, such as basil, lemongrass and butternut squash.

Bustan Qaraaqa

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reuse

use for another ubiquitous waste stream

website

Aquaponics in the community

In addition to the Bustan Qaraaqa system, Phil and Lorena have established a project at the Al-Basma Centre, a centre for young adults with mental and physical disabilities.They utilised the centre's on-site greenhouse to set up the aquaponics pilot project, which enables the centre to earn money through selling fish and organic vegetables. In the current political and economical situation it is of vital importance that organisations in Palestine can be increasingly economically sufficient. At present the Palestinian economy is heavily dependent on foreign aid. Organisations operating in Palestine are no exception, with the majority of the funding coming from external sources. The amount of financial aid reaching Palestine is diminishing annually, and this trend looks set to continue. Thus, providing the Al-Basma Centre with a means to achieving enhanced economic sustainability gives the centre more independence and will allow them to continue their work helping the clients.

We have been helping Phil and Lorena weigh and sex fish, plant the grow beds, complete water testing and build new structures. They observe, measure and record many elements of the systems to evaluate their effectiveness in terms of water and cost efficiency in producing vegetable and fish harvests compared to growing crops in soil. They have also produced an impressive training manual and workshop series which has been tested out on us (and the staff at the Al-Basma Centre) to assess their effectiveness as tools for knowledge transfer and training participants to set up and maintain aquaponic systems independently in the future.

Recently they added some Australian redclaw crayfish, Cherax quadricarinatus, in to the aquaponic systems. They have been interested to experiment with other crops and this seemed like a good start. Adding them to the sump tanks and/or raft tanks provides another crop without needing any additional resources. By introducing a crustacean they are increasing the diversity and hence stabilising and strengthening the aquaponic ecosystem. Also, it just seemed like a good opportunity as they could acquire some for free! Last but not least, shrimps are very expensive here in Palestine and these bad boys taste even nicer than shrimps! Check out how beautiful they are... this is one that escaped:

Aquaponics Techniques

Through working with Phil and Lorena we have learnt a few aquaponics techniques. The Flood and Drain technique floods the growbeds with nutrient solution until the growing medium (volcanic rock in this case) and roots are wet, then the growbeds are drained to allow air back into the plant roots. The growing medium soaks up the food and water like a sponge, so irrigation generally takes only a few minutes at a time. Gravity draws excess water from the growbeds and keeps the roots healthy.

Another technique is the Nutrient Film Technique where a thin film of nutrient rich water flows along the bottom of pipes with holes cut in them for plants in baskets to sit in with their roots reaching the water. This technique doesn't offer the same root support as a medium filled growbed, but the pipes are lightweight and can be stacked one on top of the other, creating green walls.

With the Floating Raft technique the growbeds are filled with aerated, slowly flowing, nutrient rich water. Styrofoam sheets are floated on the water surface, and the plants are planted in baskets through holes in the styrofoam. The plant roots are always immersed in the oxygenated, nutrient laden water. This growing technique does not offer as much root support as a medium filled growbed, and has an equivalent sized footprint. However, it could be very useful on rooftops, for example, as there is no need to transport hundreds of kilograms of growing medium. Also, the increased overall water volume compared to a similar sized flood and drain system gives increased thermal stability to the system. In addition, the aerated water under the plant roots provides a great habitat for other aquatic animals such as crayfish or freshwater mussels.

Vertical Grow Towers will be implemented in future. They are often called “strawberry towers”, as they lend themselves very well to strawberry production, vertical growing towers are very space efficient – they can be suspended right above the fish tank. Grow towers are filled with growing medium, and plants are planted through the sides. Water trickles through the towers from the top, draining out through the bottom. Due to the high surface area of growing medium within the towers, grow towers can also increase filtration in an aquaponic system.

Here is a sketch I did of an aquaponics system they have recently designed that combines the Flood and Drain Technique with the Nutrient Film Technique (NFT):

Aquaculture

In addition to aquaponics, Phil and Lorena have been promoting sustainable aquaculture. One method to enhance resource use efficiency is to practice this in existing irrigation cisterns. Unlike modern, high intensity aquaculture, sustainable aquaculture is not heavily reliant on technology, power, and fishmeal based fish food. Instead, the aquaculture systems they advocate rely on fairly low stocking densities and enhancing natural pond productivity through fertilisation of the water with manures and/or supplemental feeding with domestic and agricultural vegetable and cereal wastes.

This low-tech option has a couple of limitations in terms of the types and amount of fish that can be farmed because of the lack of aeration and filtration. However, for true sustainability, less fish actually means better water quality, less fish stress and less disease and parasite outbreaks. Fertilising the water costs nothing and promotes planktonic and microbial growth, leading to healthy and diverse pond ecosystems. This means that the fish live off an entirely natural diet of aquatic vegetation and pond organisms. Without air pumps, water pumps and filters, they don't consume power either which makes it cheaper, greener and worry-free – especially in a region with frequent power cuts! There are so many advantages too - production of an additional crop (food fish) from already existing resources; fresh fish to eat instead of imported, expensive frozen fish; the nutrient rich water can be used as a natural, free fertiliser for crops.

In summary

Delicious fish, edible plants, nutrient rich natural fertiliser, space efficiency, water efficiency... Aquaculture systems are amongst the most productive on earth! As part of my permaculture journey, I hope to use everything Phil and Lorena have shared with us to create our own system one day. In the mean time I will keep following their website to learn as much as I can from these energetic and beautiful people. We also want to take this opportunity to encourage you helping them... they are about to start several other pilot projects in the West Bank, and in the medium-long term, they are hoping to do similar projects in other parts of the world, including Africa. If you know of potential places or partnerships please let us/them know. Last but not least, you can support their initiative by donating here - any little helps!

As for us, sadly, we are leaving Palestine this weekend... so long, and thanks for all the fish!

The politics of olive harvesting in Palestine

2011-11-19T16:51:00.003+02:00

A post about the recent olive harvest by our volunteers, Carly and Jean. Check out their blog http://makingsenseofthings.info

We are currently staying at Bustan Qaraaqa in Palestine and just happen to be here during olive harvest season... we are also here during an interesting time because of the Shalit Deal, where Israel swaps one Israeli soldier for 1027 imprisoned Palestinians... so, how do we link olives with the Shalit Deal??

Well, ironically, the olive leaf is a symbol of abundance, glory, wisdom, fertility, pureness and peace... but here people are oppressed, getting their olive groves and rain water cisterns destroyed by Israel as the natural water resources are monopolised (on average Israelis have access to 4 times as much water as Palestinians). People's ability to sustain themselves is being taken away from them. In the past every self respecting family in Palestine would produce their own olive oil but now many are shifting to buy their oil as access to their land is taken away and their trees are uprooted... more about that later!

This post is all about olives - from harvesting to preserving - and hopefully you will find it useful, particularly if you live in a Mediterranean climate and grow olives yourself, or want to. If not, perhaps it will just help you make sense of things a little more... about olives or about Palestine.

Harvesting olives

The olives at Bustan Qaraaqa were picked from around 15 trees (although there are 60 in the grove, these were the only productive ones this year) by around 9 people over 2 days by 'milking' the branches - sliding your hands gently down the branches allowing the olives to drop onto some blankets below. The olives are harvested in the green to purple stage, and this can be done soon after the first autumn rain has fallen. As a side note, I read that canned black olives may contain chemicals (usually ferrous sulfate) that turn them black artificially. Try making sense of that...

As part of their permaculture approach, Bustan Qaraaqa grows olive trees as a polyculture rather than monoculture (as it is traditionally done). This is achieved through intercropping, for instance, with legume trees or ground covers such as chickpea which produces the much loved hommous. Data is then collected in order to assess whether polyculture improves trees' productivity.

At this time of year families everywhere are encouraging friends, family and tourists to help them with the harvest and from our experience at the Bustan Qaraaqa farm it is a fun, social activity.

Sorting and weighing the olives

The olives for each tree were carefully sorted from the leaves and weighed so that data on each tree can be collected. The total weight of olives collected this year was 97kg.

Olive trees produce every year but the amount varies from year to year. This particular olive grove had become unproductive because the trees hadn't been pruned until Bustan Qaraaqa moved in; they were neglected and water stressed due to soil degradation and decreasing rainfall. In response, the trees were pruned, 'fed' with manure and lime, and swales (water harvesting ditches) were dug to increase soil humidity. The digging of the swales is thought to have the most profound effect on productivity. So now production is increasing but it is still dependent on the water received throughout the year... and rain is still low here in Beit Sahour, just 200-300 mm per year!

Cold pressed olive oil

Bustan Qaraaqa mills the olives locally, bringing home cold pressed olive oil. The amount of oil contained in the fruit differs greatly by cultivar but the outer, edible layer is usually 60–70% oil. According to what I have read, typical yields are 1.5–2.2 kg of oil per tree per year. 15 trees from Bustan Qaraaqa's recovering grove produced 25L this year and we've preserved 5kg of olives too!

The oil is the result of the first press and is a cloudy slightly green colour. The green colour fades over time and the flavour mellows. The oil from the first press is considered one of the few truly healthy oils because it is a mono-unsaturated fat with high amounts of potent antioxidants, and a low content of cholesterol. Something people often forget though is that while olive oil is good for you at room temperature, healthy properties are destroyed when the olive oil is heated (and causes free radicals).

When olive oil is produced, the byproducts are olive cake and effluent. Here in the West Bank where there is no waste disposal, these byproducts are generally dumped around the edge of town. Unfortunately, this contributes to polluting an already polluted environment. The effluent (the water used in the process) is also discharged without treatment into streams, causing nitrification.

In the permaculture way, people could turn the problem into a solution. The olive cake could be used as a fire fuel due to the oil content remaining in it - simply compressed in to brickettes and burnt! Bustan Qaraaqa sometimes takes the olive cake to compost and use as soil in their gardens. But then, this is just another of the issues they are trying to educate on here... even composting the olive tree prunings isn't normally done in Palestine - like everything else here, it is burnt, under the misunderstanding that this is a clean way of dealing with it.

How to preserve olives

Olives are a naturally bitter fruit so they are fermented or cured with brine to make them more palatable. Freshly picked olives are not palatable because they contain phenolic compounds and oleuropein, a glycoside which makes the fruit too bitter... although apparently not unhealthy. We cut 2 slits in to our olives and soaked them in water for 10 days, changing the water every day to remove the oleuropein, which is a bitter carbohydrate. We then made up some brine (salty water at a ratio of 1:8 salt to water) and experimented with some different combinations as we packed them in to sterilised jars: olives with lemon, garlic and chilli in brine is one example, but some contained cider vinegar, rosemary vinegar, bay leaves, cumin seeds, coriander seeds, dried sage and zaatar (oregano).

As a side note, we could also have fermented our olives which would have leached out and broken down the oleuropein and phenolic compounds and also created lactic acid (a natural preservative - just like when we make our natural butter!).

About olive trees

The olive tree is very hardy as it is quite drought, disease and fire resistant, and it can live to a great age.

Olive trees prefer calcareous soils, flourishing best on limestone slopes and crags which is perfect where Bustan Qaraaqa is! They grow in any heavy soil, even on clay if well drained, but in rich soils they are predisposed to disease and produce poorer oil than in poorer soil.

The older an olive tree is, the broader and more gnarled its trunk appears. Some trees are claimed to be 2,000 years old! And in some cases it has been scientifically verified too... although, apparently it is quite difficult to age as they rot from the inside out. There are also two ancient giant olive trees in the Arab town of Arraba and 5 trees in Deir Hanna, in the Galilee area, which have been determined to be over 3,000 years old. We have heard that here in Palestine there is an olive tree in Al Wallaja which is claimed to be somewhere between 3000 and 7000 years old (depending on the carbon dating method the scientist uses)! However, they only attain that age thanks to human 'management' (pruning, watering, etc). This then shows cultural continuity in the region, whereby farmers take care of the olive trees generation after generation.

To finish on olive trees, we know a lot about them, but... we still don't know where they originally come from! It is thought that they have originated either in South Caucasus or in Yemen.

The politics of olive harvesting in Palestine

It is to be noted that at this time of year, there is always a massive peak of violence related to access to olive trees. What once was a social, happy event that brought much to the Palestinian economy is now stressful because of the violence which is now related to control of the olive tree fields. As this interesting article explains:

Palestinian farmers have had their land stolen, their crops set on fire, their trees uprooted, and their farms fenced-off beyond their reach and bricked up behind the Separation Wall, and so on. Their orchards have been razed to make way for the building of ever more illegal settlements and racist settler-only roads, and to make way for the continued construction of the illegal "apartheid" wall as well as for no other reason than simply to grab more Palestinian land.

Whereas in the past the olive harvest traditionally provided employment for thousands upon thousands of people in each region, with families working together to bring in the crops, to press the olives, to manufacture the by-products (and to export them), there are now fewer people who can earn a living this way; as a result, Palestinian families are struggling desperately. In 2010 alone it is estimated that "Israeli forces and settlers uprooted or burnt at least 10,346 olive trees in the West Bank." In Gaza it is estimated by the Palestinian Authority's Ministry of Agriculture, that Israeli forces have "destroyed at least 114,000 olive trees in the strip since the outbreak of the Palestinian Intifada in 2000." In fact, conservative estimates put the number of olive trees destroyed by the Israelis since the creation of the Zionist state on Palestinian land in 1948 at more than one million; of those, around half have been destroyed since 1987.

The article also explains that Israeli authorities destroy the crops of Palestinian farmers by levelling the farmland using armoured tractors and bulldozers and simply razing the crops and groves. Other times, Israeli soldiers themselves are responsible for much of the destruction by firing small bombs into the fields which catch alight and burn the crops. Sometimes Israel issues military orders demanding that farmers refrain from picking their crops and then arrest them if they refuse to comply. This year, we heard an account of the soldiers telling the Palestinian farmers that too few people were on the land harvesting to prove the land was being suitably used so that next year they'll be denied access... while other groups of people have been told to stop harvesting and leave because only the owner (in this case the old grandfather of the family) is authorised to harvest. Settler attacks also take many forms, including the burning of fields and trees; digging-up trees, both ancient and saplings; beating-up farmers who tend their crops, and so on.

How does Israel justify their actions?

Well, in brief... soon after the West Bank and Gaza Strip fell under the Israeli occupation in 1967, land transactions became forbidden without a written permit, which implied that land registration was compulsory from that date. Since then, many orders which affect the land directly have been issued. Among these was the reclassification of land in the occupied territories. Some land was classified as "rocky lands, unsuitable for cultivation", others as "nature reserves", and a third class as "essential military territory". The result was the confiscation of more land, redefined as state land, to be used to build Israeli settlements.

In 1980, the Israeli government adopted a new "legal" approach to state lands. This approach declared uncultivated, unregistered land as state land. This means that land which is not cultivated for 10 years or more can be claimed as state land under the reasoning that they are "neglected" or "abandoned" by its owners and therefore confiscated to ensure "proper" and "efficient" use. You can see from the stories above how the interpretations by Israel, the soldiers and the settlers on how land is being "cultivated" (or not) can vary according to their desires to grab land and hence the tensions during olive harvest...

It is evident to anyone visiting here that Israel has stolen great quantities of land from the Palestinians and used it to establish many settlements in the West Bank, like the large imposing one on the top of the hill in the photo to the left. Israel prohibits Palestinians from entering and using these lands, and uses the settlements to justify numerous violations of the Palestinians' human rights, such as the right to housing, to earn a livelihood, and the right to freedom of movement.

The destruction of Palestinian olive groves and orchards is just another human rights issue here as people already struggling under the threat of occupation, arrest, harrassment and death are also denied a source of income and sense of normality in carrying out their traditional livelihoods. Additionally, it is an environmental issue with the destruction of agricultural land and burning of crops... not to mention the effects of land and water pollution by the Israeli regime and its impact on people, plants and animals.

This is why Bustan Qaraaqa are here and why we are so interested in learning what can be achieved using permaculture under such difficult circumstances. Please take the time to read their website and if you can, donate from their website to help this very low budget project of dedicated and inspiring people continue their incredible and challenging work.

Talking rubbish - Turning trash into treasure

2011-11-14T18:41:00.000+02:00

This post was prepared by Carly, who has been volunteering at Bustan Qaraaqa for the past month. You can follow Carly and Jean's blog at www.makingsenseofthings.info.

Here at Bustan Qaraaqa they don't simply sort their recycling, compost their vegetable scraps and put out the rubbish to be collected weekly - they take REDUCE, REUSE and RECYCLE to a whole new level. With no municipal waste management in Palestine, they have adopted a policy of 'what comes on site, stays on site', often collecting other peoples waste too! Using permaculture, creativity, knowledge and passion they educate and demonstrate by living sustainably themselves and maintaining a philosophy that there is no such thing as waste - just a failure of imagination. They hope to inspire Palestinians to stop throwing their rubbish down hillsides or burning it on the side of the road and for foreign guests to understand their role in the waste cycle too. What would you do if your council didn't collect your waste? How would you consume differently? What would you do with your rubbish?

This post will take you through the details of Bustan Qaraaqa's waste management systems and also provide some inspiration from the internet on upcycling ideas... but first I want to share with you a project we have been involved in during our stay here... building a greenhouse from recycled materials.

Beit Igzaz - The Greenhouse

This construction project has been the main focus of our efforts whilst at Bustan Qaraaqa and through this work, along with dealing with the daily waste management, we have deeply internalised our connection with consumption and been inspired by by the functional and aesthetic creations that can be created from our 'rubbish'.

The beit igzaz is designed according to the principles of permaculture and will serve as a resource hub integrated into 'zone one' of the farm system. It will enable them to improve their on site resource management by providing water and food, cooking, laundry and shower facilities and more, but most importantly, by providing an alternative to the fossil fuel dependent kitchen and one-use-only grey water shower and laundry systems currently in the farmhouse. The aim is to entice the guests and volunteers to use the more sustainable and economic alternative system by offering practicality and convenience whilst also providing an impressive demonstration site for education purposes. Beit igzaz has been designed using multipurpose principles with many interconnections. This way it reduces the consumption of building materials and space by putting many functions under one roof whilst still creating a spacious, bright and green space to live in. It will contain: shower, sauna, kitchen, laundry, aquaculture, food production aquaculture, winter fruits, tropical foods, mushrooms, smokery and brewery. This sketch shows the design elements:

Functional Overview - At Bustan Qaraaqa's site in Beit Sahour they have to design for low rainfall (just 200-300ml per year!), a municipal water supply that is unsustainable, expensive and unreliable and high temperatures for more than 4 months of the year (35-50°C). Therefore, the greenhouse has been designed to efficiently use water, cool in summer months and maintain at least 16°C in winter months to keep the tropical plants happy. To achieve this over 200m³ each year of clean rainwater will be collected from the recycled plastic bottle roof draining to trees, storage tanks and cisterns. This clean water will be distilled using a solar still before drinking or used directly in the shower and kitchen. The washing machine will have the options of being filled with fresh water or from the hot soapy shower water directly. All the grey water will flow through the constructed wetland system inside building then into the tilapia fish breeding tank and on to irrigate the tropical fruit trees such as banana and avocado. The same water collecting roof will allow the sunlight in to warm the rock and the water channel but will trap the warm air under it - raising the temperature inside on cold winter days. In the summer a system of vents and ducts will keep the atmosphere cool. This solar passive architecture saves fuel. The sketch below shows the water cycling:

Water conservation - The building’s roof is designed to collect clean rainwater and deliver it to a storage tank so it can be used through the dry summer months. This water can be solar heated or supplied al clima to the shower (see the photos below), laundry, kitchen and aquaponics directly. The greywater is collected, reused and filtered by the system, and along the way, used for cleaning, laundry (prewash), climatic amelioration and crop irrigation. The water flows from one component to the next with gravity along a water quality gradient. Precaution is taken to prevent unnecessary reduction in water quality by salty soaps and detergents. Finally the water’s quality is improved by a living filter of plants as it passes through a wetland flowing into a pond overflowing into a forest soil irrigating a tropical forest food production system. The water will also play a key role in storing solar energy to heat the space on cold winter days and cool the air on hot summer days. Every drop of water used will be reused by another component of the design as they aim to achieve the most efficient use of this versatile but scarce resource. Look at the gorgeous shower that will use water collected from the roof before directing that water to the laundry...

Climatic amelioration - The building is designed to take full advantage of the wind and sun to have cooling effect on hot days and a warming effect on cool days. On cold days the vents are closed and roof and walls trap solar energy as sun warms the rock and air inside. Solar energy stored in warm rocks and water is released through the night raising minimum temperatures and preventing frost. Additional sources of warmth are: the shower room producing solar heated water and steam, the sauna, and the kitchen where the wood fuelled bread oven and rocket stoves warm the space. The fuelwood is growing on the farm. On hot days the ventilation is opened. The steeply pitched roof angled into the prevailing wind allows for the efficient extraction of hot air. The exiting hot air draws in evaporation-cooled air through a duct in the shower room where more evaporation further cools the incoming air. In theory the stronger the sun shines the faster the cool air will be pulled into the building. The ceiling is 7m high at its highest keeping the hot air high above head height. The entire roof can be shaded to limit the amount of solar energy entering the building. A solar oven replaces the need to use the bread oven on hot days. The large volume of water in the system has a cooling effect as it evaporates and transpires from surfaces. The photo above shows a volunteer constructing the recycled plastic bottle roof which is crucial for trapping heat and collecting water. The sketch below demonstrates the heating and cooling functions of beit igzaz.

Materials - To avert the environmental damage caused by the extraction, manufacture and distribution of building materials Bustan Qaraaqa set themselves the aim of collecting all materials locally by either saving, scavenging or salvaging. This has included the glass bottles to build the walls (hence the name beit iqzaz - literally glass house), the plastic bottles to build the roof and metal cans/tins to make the rocket stoves - note that there is no facility to recycle these materials in the West Bank. Additionally, they have salvaged materials from dumps, demolitions and scrap merchants, including the scrap iron for the frame, reclaimed timber for the doorframes, construction scaffold, kitchen unit, reclaimed kitchen sink, leaky water tanks as shower screen, rotten cement for levelling and smoothing floors and more! They have also made use of local materials for natural building such as soil, sand and goat manure used as a mortar or natural cement to hold the glass bottles in the walls, field stones to build the wall foundations and olive wood trunks as lintels. The soil for the tropical fruit trees and other crops to be grown inside the building is enriched with compost made on site (see the compost sections below). Look at how beautiful these glass walls are! The bottles are held in place by the natural cement and horizontal wires attached to the reclaimed steel frame.

Increased food production - The “finca”, inspired by diverse gardens of subtropical American and African forests, will provide a diverse array of foods. The finca will give Bustan Qaraaqa the opportunity to grow vegetables and fruits on the farm all year and to grow tropical fruits they now buy from the market. The warmth and recycled water will allow them to continue cropping heat loving crops through the winter such as: tomato, aubergine, cucumber, peppers, passion fruit and to harvest frost intolerant perennials such as: banana, avocado, guanabana, starfruit, zapote, cassava and taro. The possibilities are endless! Imitating the stratified and diverse structure of tropical forest ecosystems every plant life form is exploited to maximise productivity in a limited space. From the soil up, a ground layer of taro, tomato, and pepper is shaded by a subcanopy of shrubs and small trees such as banana, coffee, cacao, papaya and starfruit supporting climbing vines like black pepper, passionfruit and pitaya, all under a six meter high canopy of avocado, sapote and gunanbana (soursop) trees. Transpiration and shade will cool the atmosphere of the building in the summer months.

Waste (Resource) Management

What doesn't get used in the construction of beit igzaz gets used in other wonderful ways here at Bustan Qaraaqa...

Composting - Bustan Qaraaqa compost all their food scraps. They also include any meat, grease, hair, nut shells, coffee grinds and dirty water. Any paper or cardboard (like cereal boxes) is also torn up and added to maintain the important carbon:nitrogen ratio and the resulting compost is used in the gardens. The grease is removed from plates and added to the compost before washing up. Washing up involves soaking the dirty plates and cutlery in water with citrus (already used in a delicious meal - see the picture on the right). The citrus cleans, meaning they don't have to buy detergent - cutting down on consumption and saving the environment at the same time. The pith of lemon is rich with with antiseptic for cleaning, alcohol which is useful for dissolving grease and the acidity of the juice acts as a detergent. It is worth noting that commercial washing up liquid is 7% formalin (formaldahyde) which is a documented carcinogen and cause of dermititis. Additionally, they wash up with palm scrubbers which means they have even less to dispose of... they simply compost it when it is worn out! In the future they are planning on putting a worm farm under the kitchen work top in beit igzaz. It will enable them to continue eating their kitchen waste - nutrient rich worm castings will feed the tropical plants and the worms will feed the fish!

Human Waste - The loo with a view saves water and produces humanure (which will be used to establish beit igzaz's tropical forest). The Bustan Qaraaqa team built the beautiful compost toilet from scavenged materials suspended over the humanure composters. They gathered timber for the frame from building sites, scoured the dumps for palm fronds for the thatch, and collected bottles from bars to fill the walls. Windows were constructed from plastic bags ironed into coloured sheets, cut and ironed again into designs which glow like stained glass in the evening sun. Moreover, the true beauty of this new toilet is that they can make their contributions hygienically, saving 6L of water every time and not contributing to environmental damage due to untreated sewerage going straight in to the landscape - there is no sewerage treatment here in Beit Sahour. :(

Cardboard, clothes, textiles - With so many guests coming through Bustan Qaraaqa, there are always old and worn out clothes left behind so these are used to mulch trees as you can see in the photo below. In this dry climate, this is essential to maintain moisture and life in the soil. Of course old clothes can also be used as rags or upcycled in to new clothing or furnishings too - more about that in a future post! :-)

Glass bottles - Bustan Qaraaqa use their glass bottles in beautiful functional ways to construct beit igzaz, as you saw above, but there are many other inspiring ways glass bottles can be used too. Check out these ideas I found on the internet...

Plastic bottles - As you saw above, the plastic bottles at Bustan Qaraaqa are mostly used for the water harvesting roof on beit igzaz. However, many of the plastic bottles here are also used for more efficient irrigation. By linking the bottles together and digging them in to the ground beside a tree, watering their roots with very little water in this dry climate is much more efficient (see the picture below, middle). Another use for plastic bottles is as a water heater for the aquaponics system as seen in the picture below, left. In Taiwan, a huge building using 1.5 million PET bottles (see in the picture below right) was built recently.

Below you can see a plastic bottle school in Asia, instructions on making a bottle wall in Central America and a plastic bottle home in Nigeria.

Plastic bags - Bustan Qaraaqa simply reuse their plastic bags for carrying things, lining rubbish bins and making screens like the one in the compost toilet above but this beautiful canister basket, below, is also inspiring and I'd like to try making one someday.

Metal Bottle caps - Bustan Qaraaqa have been collecting bottle caps but are undecided what to do with them so here are some ideas..

Corks - Bustan Qaraaqa have also been collecting their wine corks but haven't used them yet so here are some ideas (on top of the obvious, cork board one)...

Tin and cans - here are some ideas for all the cans they have been storing...

Wood - There is never a shortage of ideas for wood scavenged or for pallets found. Jean recently made an armchair from a pallet and the solar oven below was built by Bustan Qaraaqa out of just two pallet.

Tyre stuffing - Finally, with any rubbish that can't be reused or recycled (like cigarette butts, women's hygiene products, some plastic containers, etc), Bustan Qaraaqa stuffs it in to tyres and builds structures like the below bed bases (which have been cobbed over) or small huts.

A final note...

Staying at Bustan Qaraaqa has definitely helped me deepen my connection to waste management and also got me thinking about the best ways to process waste... so here are some things to remember...

Sort, group and clean your waste straight away - no one wants to pick out old yoghurt pots for their project!
1 of anything is almost useless but by collecting items you regularly use the possibilities expand for unique, beautiful things or construction projects.
REDUCTION is the most important (then reuse and then recycle) thing for the environment - by reducing your waste you also reduce your work!

Please share your experiences in waste management and any interesting projects for reusing or recycling things. :)

Donkey Odyssey 2011

2011-05-17T19:54:00.005+03:00

Last week, we spent Thursday afternoon on Abed’s land, helping out with the weeding of his trees. After the afternoon’s work we sat down to drink some tea with him and a few of his friends, one of whom, Mohammed, announced he had three donkeys to give to Abed.

Abed used to have donkeys two years ago to help him carry water to his land, as he is not linked to the mains supply; but since then they have died. He has not had new ones and depends on the help of his friends. Since he will shortly be cut off from Bethlehem by the Wall, it is about to become much harder for his friends to help him. Both he and his farm are at risk.

Mohammed then announced that the donkeys were in Abu Dis and his idea was to ride them all the way to Wallaja. He asked for Alice’s help. So last Wednesday, off we went to Abu Dis, Alice Max and I, in the evening to be able to have an early start to ride all the way to Wallaja in a day. On arrival at Mohammed’s house he toured us around it and then took us to his sister’s house so that we could meet her and her family, her seven children and her husband. Showing usual Palestinian hospitality, we drank a cup of fresh mint tea and then went back to the house to listen to Mohammed playing the oud for the next few hours!

The next morning, we set off (not so early in the end) with not three but four donkeys to bring, as one of the mares had a foal. The trip from Abu Dis to Beit Sahour was done in the bottom of the wadis we were crossing, so luckily there was no traffic at all, except crossing the settler road just north-east of Beit Sahour. Instead we were crossing dry fields with one or two trees here and there. It is worth mentioning that the direct route from Abu Dis to Wallaja is just 10 km, but due to the construction of the Wall and several settlements, we were forced to circle around on a 25 km detour.

Climbing out of Wadi Nar.

Crossing the settler road.

Once in a while, Max, Mohammed and I would ride a donkey each but most of the time we would be pulling them. I quickly realized that I wasn’t very patient with them, especially when they stopped every fraction of a second to graze. I admired Alice who was wonderful with her donkey. The mare was quite badly injured and as soon as she stopped she would rest on three legs only. Unfortunately, we only realised after having left Mohammed’s house.

Mohammed and Max riding their donkeys.

Losing my patience!

We arrived in Beit Sahour 5 hours after our departure and were lucky to find ourselves opposite Ruth’s Field restaurant where we had a snack of falafel! At the same place, Mohammed decided he was too tired to go on and left us with the four donkeys. Alice, Max and I were determined to get to Abed’s that same day.

So off we went again, but this time we were travelling on roads only. Coming through Beit Sahour was a bit of a hassle with kids following us all the way to Bethlehem, bullying the donkeys. However, now we come to the most entertaining part of our journey: Bethlehem. We decided to cross the town through Manger square and the souks, as this was the most direct route. So there we were on Manger Square with our own donkeys, couldn’t have felt more in the right place! Even though it was slightly stressful, getting our tired donkeys through crowds of people (some of whom found it very entertaining to kick the donkeys), it got me laughing quite a lot seeing almost everybody take their phones out to take pictures of us. It’s also in Bethlehem that we finally found a pharmacy to get our limping mare bandages. We really thought her legs were going to give out any minute.

Further on, crossing Bab-as-Kaak, a policeman regulating the circulation signalled us to cross when the lights had turned green and hastily took out his phone to take a picture of us, as well. The last part of our traverse was the longest; going all the way up to Beit Jala then Cremisan. But then we’d arrived! And looking back at the day, it didn’t feel like it took so long (8 hours).

Nearly there !

Abed welcomed us at the top of his drive and we quickly tethered the donkeys before celebrating our success, I guess I can call it that. Only to come back to them a few minutes later to take their improvised saddles off and get them water. Alice stayed the night to help out with them in the morning. And now, Abed is all set with his own fleet of water tankers!

Of fish and Faidherbia......

2010-11-04T11:12:00.002+02:00

Impelled by enthusiasm brought by Phil and Lorena rejoining the project in July after their epic bike ride to Palestine from the UK, we mounted an expedition to bring tilapia fish to the wadi cistern to kick-start our new fish-farming project.

A friendly fish farmer on the River Jordan, volunteered several hundred fingerlings, which posed us with the challenge of transporting the fish the length of the Jordan Valley, by then a forbidding inferno of sun cracked rock, without baking them alive. Having no vehicle of our own, we usually hitchhike, but with temperatures exceeding 50 degrees every day of August and being wise to the complications presented by hitchhiking with live fish (this would not be my first time), we resolved we would need help to safely deliver the perishable cargo. Persuaded by the promise of swimming in the freshwater of the lake, Magda and Andrea (friends living in Beit Sahour) agreed to drive their little Renault van. As the military checkpoints on the road prevented us from squeezing more people in to van than its two seats allowed, Phil, Lorena, and I would hitch. We planned to meet after the last checkpoint at a Crusader fortress called the Star of the Winds, where it is rumoured the rarest tree in Palestine, Faidherbia albidia, can still be found on the mountain slopes beneath the castle. I hoped to collect seeds. From there we would travel north together to camp on the bank of the River Jordan close to the fish farm to collect the fish early in the morning and drive them back to the farm before the day hit boiling point. As we set out that early summer morning, we were expecting heat, but I don’t think any one of us could imagine just what lay in store for us.

Setting out at dawn, we quickly descended the mountain slopes in a series of rides (Fellaheen, Bedouin, Settlers) down through the shabby Arab towns, across the steeply sloping desert whose pink and white rock shone in the bright morning light, down, down under sea level to the deep blue Dead Sea, laid still as a corpse on the floor of the Rift Valley surrounded by a plane of blinding white salt. Outside Jericho, huddled in a shrinking pool of shade cast by a road sign eventually we flagged down a driver. Winding down the window a little the driver a young man squinted at the bright reflected light “I’m bound to Bet She’an!” he shouted in Hebrew, confusing heat with noise and added in pre-emption of any panic once we were in the car, “You understand I am Arab?” Replying in broken Arabic I assured him that was not a problem for us and we gratefully jumped into the car. The thermometer on the dashboard informed us the temperature was 47 degrees. The time was only nine O’clock. At some point in the conversation we spun along the long valley road he admitted that he was afraid we were settlers with a plan to kill him. He would not have stopped had we not looked so desperate. Perhaps he felt guilty for having not trusted us because he drove us 10 km beyond his junction, leaving us under the mountain crowned by the Fortress of the Star of the Winds. The thermometer read 51 degrees. The time was one O’clock.

Our forlorn trio stood sinking into the tarmac of the road as we gazed up at the mountain, its broad tan swell, the castle only just discernable, stood infinitely remote on the summit. A single road, a ribbon of tarmac, wound up the pleated flanks and disappeared over the horizon to the right of the peak. Blinking, my eyelids folded rather than slid over my dried eyeballs. No wind stirred the brittle golden thistles of the verge. We set out through a grove of Christ-thorn Jujube trees (Zizyphus spina –christi), their tangled white trunks naked but for the last vestiges of dry foliage. Seen through the heat bent the air, the trees appeared to melt then crystallise into fierce spines. In a futile attempt to head-off feelings of despair I extolled the virtues of the elusive Faidherbia tree and, attempting to rally the spirit of adventure, tried “nothing worth having comes easy” and “A man's worth is no greater than his ambitions”. Not even I was convinced.

There was no time for dissent. Lorena made it 100m meters until complaining that her earrings where burning in her ears, took refuge under the first bush and, quite sensibly, refused to go on. After all, Magda and Andrea would follow this way in the little van. But van or no van it was clear to me the lure of copious fresh water would overwhelm my urgings so I resolved to use all the remaining time until their arrival to find my trees. Phil conceded to accompany me but almost immediately began to regret his decision. After the grove of Jujube trees the track climbed steeply up the treeless slopes. We were walking fast in the knowledge that we needed to get out of the sun and that we must find these trees before our rescue party could save us from ourselves. After half an hour of climbing and still no sign of a Faidherbia we began to feel a bit queer. Nothing serious, just a tingling in the arms and legs and a sense of wellbeing incongruous with our situation. I attributed the tingling to the fact that I was not getting enough oxygen into my body to maintain our rapid pace. It seemed reasonable to me that upon sensing the atmosphere to be moustache-stingingly hot, one’s physiological response is to protect the lungs by not sucking the stuff in. Deliberately, I breathed more deeply. Sharing my observations with Phil he confirmed my symptoms and added with detachment, between gasps, that he was experiencing a euphoric delirium akin to the nitrogen narcosis experienced by divers who go too deep for too long. Now analogous to a fatal condition, our state gave us cause for mild concern. We reviewed our situation: Having drunk almost continuously since setting off half an hour ago we reasoned we could not yet be dehydrated. Our heads where well covered but nevertheless concluded that hastening up a mountain with no shade, at midday, in August, in the Jordan Valley was a sure way of inducing hyperthermia. Predicting a cool breeze on the mountain top and the welcoming shade of the fortress we resolved to go on.

Our folly was soon rewarded when nearing the crest of the ridge, there silhouetted above us on the horizon, a file of twisted-trunked trees with thin crowns. Upon closer inspection the trees were even stranger with short thick gnarled trunks, contorted branches bent down under their own weight and liberally scattered with small but incredibly sharp spines (Although careful to avoid the spines I picked my finger the moment I reached out to touch a leaf). The leaves, shaped like those of a mimosa, were delicate, tiny and few. The trees were small and spaced apart but numbered several hundred. The shade they offered, though sparse, was welcome. As we walked on the searching for a tree in fruit in the hope of collecting the seed, we saw a big old tree whose branches came down to the ground. “I’m waiting here for the van,” declared Phil. I walked on to the summit in the vain hope of collecting seeds.

The stand of Faidherbia trees ended as abruptly as it began, numbering only a few hundred trees. I saw neither flowers nor fruit. My dead-end, burning path climbed gently along the bare ridge to the castle whose approach was lined with old carob trees each oddly dense in this lofty world dissipating into the bright heat. The castle stood abandoned on the peak. Alone I bridged the deep moat entering the gate of a symmetrical temple of massive stones neatly placed on vertical walls arranged in concentric rings. Griffon vultures hopped and hunched on the battlement from where the land fell away. Far below in the depths of the Jordan Valley, like pooled mercury, lay the Sea of Galilee and the Dead Sea, and, far off in the haze, a sliver of silver which could only be the Mediterranean Sea. A triangulation of hope, infinitely remote in this cruel theatre of war. The Star of the Winds: a temple to Futility.

Gazing on the great stones of the crumbling walls stacked on the brink, I fancied I knew how Sisyphus feels as he begins his descent. I’ll be back in another season in the hope of collecting Faidherbia seeds and maybe many times after that. Maybe the trees have lost their pollinator species. Maybe they stopped fruiting decades ago (I observed no young trees). But if the task be futile and hope absurd, then I must be content I reached the top of the mountain and found my trees. As Camus puts it, "The struggle itself toward the heights is enough to fill a man's heart. One must imagine Sisyphus happy."

Returning to the bridge over the moat I encountered the others small and quiet wandering scattered between the great walls of the ruin. Packed like tined sardines in the back of the scorching Renault van we descended the mountain track back into the Jordan Valley Highway and there turned North to where the River flows out of the lake. Panting in a pool of our mingling sweat we silently tolerated conditions illegal since the passing of animal welfare legislation for the transport of livestock.

Tumbling to the dust from the back of the van we dashed for the glassy green water without even removing our clothes. We bathed in the flow for hours watching the kingfishers perched in the over-arching green of tall eucalyptus trees until dusk. The Jordan under Israel has morphed into a billabong. Exhausted we slept there on bank between the water of the Jordan and a canal of sewage. It was a foul spot but we hadn’t the energy to search for another. As we rested the coypu emerged from their burrows frolicked around our sleeping forms plunging noisily into the river.

At dawn we returned to the van and after breakfast in a bland kibbutz we drove south to the meet Roy, our friendly fish farmer. He drove us around the artificial rectangular lakes where for 18 years he has been raising fish. We smelt the fish before we saw them. The surface of the water boiled as the fish slid over one another. The seagulls picked at the pale bloated corpses lining the shore. The survivors gaped in water hot to touch. “We used to treat for fresh water diseases but now the water has become so saline we treat for marine diseases” he informed us. Hot and boring fast we were shown lake after lake full of desperate fish. “There are 2000 to 3000 fish per meter cubed.” From the shallows of one lagoon he netted hundreds of tiny tilapia fish – our precious cargo. Fistfulls of their silvery forms were cast into a cardboard box lined with a plastic bag. The temperature of the water was cooled by the addition of chilled water and an atmosphere of oxygen pumped in before the bag was sealed. Now the race was on. After a hasty farewell we waved the goodbye to the Renault heading South on Route 90. They would stop at each service station on the road to add ice to the fishes’ water.

Reluctantly we began to hitch home. A haze of blasé surrounds my memories of a series of rides with soldiers, uniforms and guns checkpoints etc… Occupation lite. Hitching with a Palestinian (Jerusalem ID but living illegally in Hebron), the road was so hot one of the car’s tyres bust as he was buying us iced grapefruit juice. His shaved head and fat neck looked like melting wax as he struggled to align the bolt holes on the hub. Thankfully he drove us to into Beit Sahour from where we could walk home and release the fish found already floating in their bag in the cistern as they had been left by Magda and Andrea.

Permaculture and Empowerment in Palestine

2010-06-19T09:46:00.003+03:00

By Alice Gray, first published in Permaculture Activist, June 2010

“Nations and peoples are largely the stories they tell themselves. If they tell themselves stories that are lies, they will suffer the future consequences of those lies. If they tell themselves stories that face their own truths, they will free their histories for future flowerings.” (Ben Okri)

The Middle East has long been a place for beginnings. It was here that people first began to practice agriculture approximately 12,000 years ago, here that the first cities were established, and here that 3 major monotheistic religions were born. It is a place for questions and for seeking answers, and so perhaps it is appropriate that we should have chosen this venue to start our own search for answers to perhaps the most important question of our time: how can we live sustainably?

Such a simple question, it seems the answer too should be simple. And yet, in the world we live in, where global climate change, loss of biodiversity and toxification of the environment are all daily realities, it is clear that we do not have that answer. In fact it is increasingly clear that the ‘status quo’ for human existence on this planet, particularly in our so-called ‘developed’ nations, is one of environmental destruction.

A rudimentary examination of global resource flows or ecological footprinting can tell us that developed nations are consuming the vast majority of the world’s ecological wealth. It is a cliché these days to say that if everybody lived like Americans we would need 10 planets to support us. Another almost equally obvious although less frequently acknowledged fact is that this monopolisation of resources is being enforced through military coercion. Resource war, like climate change, is not a frightening story of what tomorrow may bring, but a horrific reality of today. In the Middle East, where Iraq lies smouldering in ruins and the brutal summers are getting longer and dryer year by year, both are already far too much in evidence.

Palestine is a special place: a tiny Mediterranean coastal strip on the edge of the Naqab desert, and a brief flush of mountains between the bulwark of Israel on one side and the Judean desert on the other form the Gaza Strip and the West Bank respectively. It is a land of ancient stone terraces and olive groves, of almond blossom and minarets; but also of military occupation and active colonisation, where the call to prayer mingles with the hum of fighter jets overhead, and wild flowers grow between the razorwire and the watchtowers of the Occupation.

To live in Palestine is as if to live beneath a magnifying glass. It is a place of conflict where two worlds meet and clash within a scant 6200 square kilometres of land; and control of and access to resources play very directly into politics of power and oppression. A country of extremes and extreme contrasts: it is like a microcosm of global problems, where everything is exaggerated and condensed.

A red-roofed Israeli settlement perches on a West Bank hilltop: the epitome of modernity. Sprinklers play across well watered lawns, swimming pools shimmer in the ever-present sun and air-conditioning units hum in neat brick houses. Connected to Israel by well-surfaced roads, the well-to-do residents, who are the recipients of numerous tax-breaks and government-funded utility subsidies for their participation in this colonisation project, are able to zoom back and forth unimpeded; going about their business without ever coming into contact with or barely even seeing another world that hovers close by.

At the foot of the hill, a scant stones’ throw away, a Palestinian village nestles in the valley. Caught between the settlement on one side and its access road on the other (which is out-of bounds to Palestinians), the village is practically encircled by a razorwire fence. The narrow streets that wind between the old stone houses are potholed and choked with rubbish and dust; the gardens wilted and dry. Water supply in the summer is intermittent at best and non-existent at worst. People scratch a living; the agricultural land from which they used to support themselves is either rendered inaccessible by the encircling fence or ruined by untreated sewage pouring down the hill from the settlement above, or from the village itself.

This spectacle is familiar to anybody who has spent time in the West Bank and could refer to literally hundreds of villages, from Jenin governorate in the north to Hebron in the south. These marked contrasts are not only the product of cultural differences (which may explain differences in dress, language and architecture), but of a carefully orchestrated and brutally enforced program of colonisation and control that is designed to create and reinforce privilege and power. In the case of the Israeli settler movement in the West Bank this is motivated by a religious-nationalist agenda; but once you start to understand this pattern, you begin to see it operating everywhere, and at every scale.

Breaking it down, we see that it rests on two main pillars: appropriation of resources and control over their production and distribution to benefit an ‘elite’; and disenfranchisement and subjugation of an ‘underclass’ to create a dynamic of dependency and thus of control; both backed by military might.

Looking again at the Israeli settlement and the Palestinian village, and the great gulf in privilege between them, we can see this pattern in action very clearly. Perhaps the issue of access to water, that most vital of life-giving resources, is a good illustration. Why is it that the settlers are so much better off in this respect than the Palestinians? Is it lack of organisation on the part of the Arabs? Is it that there is not enough water to go around, and so someone has to lose out?

Looking beneath the surface, it becomes apparent that the answer to both questions is no. Despite the aridity of the Middle East in general, there is enough water in naturally occurring resources inside Israel and the Palestinian Territories for everyone to receive the World Health Organisation recommendation of 100 litres per person per day to cover their basic needs; and still have a substantial amount left over for agricultural and industrial purposes (see below for the basic sums).

Total sustainable yield of main natural water resources in Israel and the OPT (million cubic metres per year) About 1800
Total population of Israel and the OPT About 10 000 000
Total annual water requirement for everyone to receive 100 litres per person per day (million cubic metres per year) (10 000 000 x 100 x 365) / 1000 000 000
= 365
Remainder (million cubic metres per year) 1435
.
In spite of this, average water supply to Palestinians in the West Bank is a scanty 50 litres per person per day (just half of the World Health Organisation recommended minimum) while Israeli settlers living in the same area receive an unlimited supply. Across the board (including industrial and agricultural water use), on a per capita basis, Israelis have access to four times as much water as Palestinians according to the World Bank’s most recent water development report.

This inequality is no coincidence. It is well documented that Israel has maintained a strangle-hold on Palestinian water development: first under the Israeli Civil Administration from 1967-1995, and then under the terms of the Oslo Interim Agreement, in force from 1995 until the present. Organisations working in the sector, from Amnesty International to Oxfam to the World Bank have drawn the same conclusion . A similar story applies to other development sectors such as wastewater or solid waste management.

The upshot of this monopolisation of resources and strangulation of development is one of both human suffering and environmental destruction, as not only the people and their culture but also the very fabric of the country crumble under the strain. Food, water and economic insecurity are commonplace in Palestinian communities; while 90% of sewage goes untreated, choking the wadis and poisoning the soil, and the air is thick with the fumes of burning garbage. In the West Bank, Israel controls 60% of the land and 80% of the water, while in Gaza, where 1.5 million people are crammed into a scarce 365 km2 of land, there are insufficient resources to support the population and incessant border closures (not to mention bombings) have created widespread hardship.

The gap between ‘haves’ and ‘have-nots’ is wide and widening. In 2005, Israel’s Gross National Income (GNI) per capita was almost eighteen times the Palestinian GNI per capita. Militarily and economically, the power dynamics are clear. Does this pattern seem familiar yet? Looking around the world at the global trade system, the issue of Third World Debt, the interventionist foreign policies of Western nations; and back at a long history of Western imperialism and colonialism, it is hard not to see a parallel . Both within and between countries, this culture of exploitation deeply permeates our societies; ensuring that the world is arranged to benefit a few powerful elites at the expense of the majority of people and the fabric of the planet.

How can we overcome these dynamics of oppression and destruction, whether as unwilling participants in exploitative systems or as victims of those systems? Whilst systemic change is clearly desirable, action at the individual and community level is more immediately obtainable and will have more tangible consequences in our lives. Permaculture is one route to effect such change, essentially taking back control over our patterns of consumption and disposal and placing ourselves at the centre of a conscious interaction with the world. Permaculture is about reimagining our relationship with the rest of existence, and finding within ourselves the creativity to live in a way that enhances the world, rather than destroying it.

Which brings us back to Bustan Qaraaqa: a four-acre permaculture farm on the edge of the Judean desert in the West Bank town of Beit Sahour close to the city of Bethlehem. Bustan Qaraaqa is an experiment in sustainable living and food production, seeking to support and empower Palestinians to obtain the resources they need from the environment around them, whilst also managing their environmental impacts to turn the tide of destruction that is destroying their country. Bustan Qaraaqa is about demonstrating what individuals and communities can do, even under military occupation, to take control of their situation and to create in the midst of destruction.

We are using techniques such as rainwater harvesting and grey-water recycling to augment water supplies. Composting toilets save water and prevent sewage pollution. Composting of food waste and cardboard provides a valuable resource for growing food, as well as taking care of a good deal of household waste; and green-building techniques such as using tyres stuffed with rubbish as bricks make for cheap structures that also help clean up the country.

Beit Sahour is one of the hottest and driest towns in the West Bank, which presents the perfect testing ground for drought-tolerant, low water input food production techniques. Using a combination of drip irrigation and mulching, we are attempting to minimize water input whilst maximizing soil moisture content. We are also experimenting with companion planting and agroforestry techniques to develop robust ecosystems that supply a variety of goods and services, from building materials to food and medicines. We have managed to develop the only native tree nursery in the Palestinian Territories, and are making its products freely available to the surrounding community for agroforestry, ecosystem restoration and community gardening projects.

The founders of the farm are British by origin, and we are finding a warm welcome in the Palestinian community that hosts us, building strong partnerships with Palestinian farmers and organisations. In addition, we are finding friends across the border, in the ‘green’ community in Israel, who are keen to connect with and support Palestinians in obtaining their environmental rights and resisting the oppressive dynamics of the Israeli occupation. Working alongside Israelis and Palestinians, we are realising more and more the truth of the statement by Bill Mollison, one of the fathers of the permaculture concept that: “A person of courage today is a person of peace. The courage we need is to refuse authority and accept only personally responsible decisions.”

Tree Planting @ Ra'ed's Land

2009-12-17T18:14:00.003+02:00

These pictires are from a tree planting event we did at Ra'ed's land near the village of Um Salamoneh. This land is threatened with confiscation to make way for a cemetery for settlers. Ra'ed contested the confiscation in the Israeli High Court and won a ruling that he can keep any land that he has 'developed' by December 31st this year. He has 90 dunums (9 hectares) of land. Of this, any left undeveloped will be confiscated by the Israeli state under Ottoman Land Law, which allows the state to confiscate any land left fallow for a period of 3-7 years.

Bustan Qaraaqa donated 50 trees to Ra'ed and spent a fantastic day planting them with him and his family.

Earth-building @ Paidia

2009-12-17T18:09:00.002+02:00

This earth-building project is part of a wider plan to develop the new Paidia Headquarters into a permaculture site - demonstrating to the kids participating in the Paidia programmes the possibilities for grassroots environmental action for land and people.

More snaps from Tree Planting Workshops

2009-12-17T18:01:00.001+02:00

The Tree Planting Season has started!

2009-11-20T20:33:00.002+02:00

The winter rains are now falling in Palestine and so, taking full advantage of the season, we have begun to plant the trees we have been raising in our nursery all year.

Fortuitously, just at the right moment, a group called Juzoor (www.juzoor.org) have come forward to cooperate with us, bringing groups of school children to do tree planting workshops at Bustan Qaraaqa.

So now we are well on the way to making a little forest across our site, producing a variety of goods and services from food to fuel to soil improvement and erosion control.

Here are a few snaps from recent workshops:

Photos from the Olive Harvest

2009-11-20T20:24:00.002+02:00

Here are a few snaps from the Bustan Qaraaqa olive harvest back in October. Like everyone in Palestine, we did not get a particularly good crop this year - the combined effects of 2 years of drought, unseasonal hot winds destroying blossoms in the flowering season, and the cropping cycles of olive trees made for a particularly bad year.

Nevertheless, we enjoyed the days spent in the olive grove, hunting the elusive fruits amongst the leaves, and eventually we drought in 20 kg of olives (down from a crop of 150kg last year).

Olive Harvest at Bustan Qaraaqa: Friday October 23rd - Sunday October 25th

2009-10-14T16:40:00.003+02:00

Come and help us bring our olive harvest in and enjoy a few days of outside activity! We have over 60 olive trees on the site and need some extra hands to gather the crop.

Work will be starting from 9.30am onwards, to until it gets dark. Bring a bit of food for a picnic or for a barbeque in the evenings and enjoy our site!

Call us on 02 2748994 if you need directions to get here. Accomodation is available in our guesthouse if you would like to make a weekend of it. Just give us a call or an email in advance to let us know you will be staying.

Hope to see you here,

with love from

the Bustan Qaraaqa team
x

October Newsletter

2009-10-09T11:53:00.002+02:00

Dear friends,

October has arrived, bringing with it some let up in the furnace-like heat we have been experiencing over the last few months and even a little life-giving rain; and it seems that both we and our tree nursery have survived another Middle Eastern summer. Al hamdoolilah. Of course, far from enjoying the respite from the physical ordeal of the extreme heat, most of our neighbours have spent the last month fasting for the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, taking neither food nor water between sun-up and sun-down. Since the sun rises at about 6am and goes down at 7.30pm and temperatures are still topping 30˚C in the middle of the day, this is no mean feat, and one that we decadent Westerners are only too happy to forego.

The summer has passed in something of a haze, and it seems a very long time since we were enjoying eating all the spring greens and admiring the wild flowers. A lot of our time and thought since then have been used up in bringing ourselves and the farm through the water crisis, which seemed to bite even harder this year than the last. This is possibly because we have had on average about 3 times as many people at the farm compared to last summer, and also have had much greater water commitments to keep all our trees alive. Nonetheless, cut-offs have been frequent and lengthy, with the longest lasting for 26 days in July.

When there was water coming through the pipes, it did not have sufficient pressure to reach the roof tanks that supply the house, and so we were only able to fill lower tanks (meaning there was no water inside the house for more than 2 months). Episodes of water supply would only last a few hours every few weeks, and each time we would scramble to fill as many containers as possible, knowing that whatever we could store would have to last us and our plants, trees and animals for many days, weeks or even a month.

I think very few of us will ever think about water in the same way again after this summer. We will be forever flinching at taps left running for no reason, horrified by the idea of the wastage of this most vital resource. Particularly sobering is the knowledge that we are probably better off than over half of the Palestinian population of the West Bank and the vast majority of Gazans. At least we have a pipeline to our house (over 250 000 West Bankers do not). At least the water coming out of it is drinkable (over 90% of the water in the Gaza network does not meet international drinking water standards).

To cope with the water shortage we developed some fairly rough and ready but nonetheless effective strategies. Our first problem was obviously one of conservation – how to use the water available to us in the most efficient way possible. On average, Americans, Europeans and Israelis use about 150 litres of water per person per day in their homes to maintain the sort of lifestyle we are used to (showers, washing machines, flush toilets etc). This water use is broken up as follows:

Toilet flush: 29%
Toilet leaks: 5%
Dish washing: 3%
Bath: 9%
Taps: 12%
Shower:21%
Washing Machine: 21%

If we did that at Bustan Qaraaqa, we would be in bad trouble and fast. With an average of 10 people at the house we would need 1500 litres of water per day just for the people, never mind the plants (which require at least 3000 litres per week). We have a storage capacity in and around the house of just 16 cubic metres (16 000 litres), so we would not last very long (and certainly not 26 days). Fortunately, because we have a composting toilet, we already cut out about 34% of this total (toilet flush and toilet leaks). Just this one thing saved us about 500 litres of water per day, and prevented us from contributing to the huge untreated sewage stream pouring out of Bethlehem into the Judean desert to poison streams, soil and groundwater.

Just the other day I turned the first of our ‘humanure’ heaps that has been ‘cooling off’ for the last 9 months (meaning that we didn’t add anything to it, except the occasional bucket of greywater to stop it drying out). I was able to reflect on the beautiful alchemy of nature as I heaved spades full of rich, dark, good-smelling compost teaming with soil invertebrates into a heap to be used for tree planting this autumn and spring. How much better than a poisoned stream is this?

After the toilet, the next biggest water users in a normal household are showers and washing machines, at about 30 litres per person per day each. To cut these quantities down, we developed The Ultimate Bustan Qaraaqa Conservation Shower, using one bucket of water to wash ourselves, our clothes and the floors. This is achieved by the simple expedient of standing atop a pile of laundry and detergent in a large basin whilst washing so that all the water falls into the basin. Since our shower didn’t work for most of the summer due to the lack of water pressure, we would always wash with a bucket of water in any case, cutting 30 litres down to about 18. Once we had finished washing ourselves we would wash our clothes (stamping on them seems to be pretty effective), and then pour out the water to wash the floor. In our house all the water from the drains goes out to water plants via the greywater system, adding a fourth use to the list for just one bucket of water.

Thanks to a generous donation by the Chaput family and a successful fundraising party in early June, we were able to fill and shade the new cistern and install a drip irrigation system for the tree nursery, giving us greater water security for our plants and saving us a lot of water and hours of work in the nursery. This also provided us with a place to cool off during the hottest hours of the day, when staff and volunteers were frequently to be found wallowing like hippopotami in the cool green water.

Another problem we had to overcome was one of water quality. Storing water for days on end in tanks that stand in the sun and are not completely sealed to incursions by lizards and birds at least places a question-mark over the wisdom of drinking the water without any form of treatment. Boiling the water is one way to ensure that it is sterile, but this takes a lot of energy (electric or gas). So instead we used the power of the ever-present sun to cleanse the water, laying it out on the roof in clear bottles for a day. A combination of the heat and the ultraviolet rays passing through it kills pathogens and renders it safe to drink.

Building on this idea of using the sun’s energy, Tom and Julian spent several weeks designing and constructing a solar oven, using mirrors to focus the heat through a glass panel and into an insulated box. After some trial and error we found that this oven could reach a temperature of about 150°C during the hottest part of the day and was excellent for slow-cooking casseroles or roasting vegetables.

In August we were proud to participate in the first ever Occupied Palestine and Golan Advocacy Initiative (OPGAI) volunteer camp, hosting groups of youths from all over the West Bank to learn about the mission of Bustan Qaraaqa and participate in green building activities with us; helping us to construct beds out of old tyres stuffed with rubbish and covered in cob in one of our empty caves. Hopefully this project will be completed soon and we will add another dormitory to our sleeping accomodation, in time for the Olive Harvest influx.

Throughout the summer, we have continued to work with out good friend Abed Rabbo on his land in Al Wallaja, rebuilding water catchments around the trees and cutting back encroaching weeds. Unfortunately, Abed’s situation has worsened recently, with increasing attempts to expel him from his land by Israeli authorities. Abed has been arrested several times in the last few weeks and held at the police station in Talpiyot for questioning. It turns out that Abed’s ownership of his land is not in question, since he holds deeds stretching back to the time of the Ottoman empire. However, since the municipal boundaries of Jerusalem have been changed, the land is now classified as being inside Jerusalem despite being on the Palestinian side of the Green Line. Therefore it is now considered illegal for Abed to go to his land without a permit, which he does not currently have.

Legal aid is being sought, and we are trying to support Abed by maintaining a presence at his land as much as possible to protect his trees and his possessions from interference, and to witness any violations of his human rights. We intend to continue to support him in developing his site, and hope to install a rainwater harvesting system before the winter, as he still lacks any piped water supply. We are currently seeking support for this project (we need about 3000 shekels or £500), so if you would like to help, please check our website (www.bustanqaraaqa.org) for channels of donation.

And so having come through the summer, we are looking forward to our most exciting season yet. After we have harvested our olives in October/November we can begin the work of planting out the 2000 trees we have raised in our nursery this year. We plan to use approximately half of the trees on our own site to begin to establish a unique food forest, and to plant the other half with our partners in the local community, holding workshops with local schools, restoring degraded land, establishing community gardens and a number of other projects. We can also then begin to reseed and expand the nursery so that we have even more trees to plant next season.

Bustan Qaraaqa will also see some staffing changes in the next season as our co-founder Steve and his lovely wife Rania will be leaving for the UK, where they will continue to network and work to support the farm. Our permanent staff on the ground in Palestine will therefore now consist of Alice, Tom and Roman (as ever) and new team member Lyra, who has rashly agreed to manage the guesthouse for us. We are also excited to welcome Daniel as a long-term volunteer for the coming year.

As ever we have to thank our multitude of volunteers and supporters for their generous contributions to the project. In particular we thank the Chaput family, Imogen Bright, the British Shalom Salaam Trust, Phil Olive and M Hussein for their kind donations; Julian for funding and designing the solar oven; Adam for his continued work on the website; Phil and Mary for running around administering the project on the UK side; and Jared, Faith and Baha for their help with the fundraising party.

That’s all for now. You can keep up with us in the coming months by checking our website (www.bustanqaraaqa.org) and our blog (www.greenintifada.blogspot.com) for news. We wish you all joy and light wheresoever you may be and we warmly invite you to join us at Bustan Qaraaqa for the coming season (it’s the Olive Harvest in October!).

With love from

Alice, Lyra, Nick, Roman, Rania, Steve and Tom

The Bustan Qaraaqa team
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Solidarity Demonstration in Beit Ommar

2009-08-25T12:44:00.003+03:00

The staff of Bustan Qaraaqa first became interested in the work of the Palestinian Solidarity Project (PSP, linked above) in Beit Ommar because of the organic farm projects being conducted by the locals of the village with the support of PSP.

We went down to meet them on Wednesday 19 August to compared notes on their cistern and our recently built cistern. They displayed an impressive commitment to organic farming techniques, and we made plans to return on friday morning to see the land confiscation issues that they were currently facing. We were interested in seeing firsthand the difficulties the local farmers are facing with recent settlement buildup nearby.

Four members of Bustan Qaraaqa's staff joined the group in the most recent Green Intifada action. All told there were about 40 demonstrators there including members of international NGOs, Palestinian Nationals, and concerned Israeli Citizens alike.

Beit Ommar is a suburb of Hebron that is being chipped away at by a settlement which continues to creep closer to the houseline of the village. The fence that surrounds the houses in the settlement is further surrounded by a security fence that cuts directly into currently used Palestinian farmland. The security fence is now less than 100 meters away from the nearist Beit Ommari house.

Every friday the families of the farmers gather at the gate to the security fence where the children fly flags, and the men of the families who have all been arrested many times argue and raise their voices when the first dusty Hum Vee with state of the art suspension screams over a rocky hill and skids up to the gate.

Technically you can't be within 50 meters of the fence on the palestinian side, further adding to the frustrations of the farmers whose farms not only reach right up to the edge of the security fence, but are also partially located on the other side. Farmers who want to work their land on the other side of that fence have to go through a lengthy permit process which disables them from adequately maintaining their crops.

Touching the fence is cause for live ammunition against Palestinians, though not internationals. This doesn't stop the old farmers from grabbing hold of the razor wire each friday while he prays and wails about what has happened in front of the soldiers, and our little crowd. But he backs off early, in fact none of the Palestinians stay very long at the gate itself when the settlement police join the soldiers at the gate.

But the settlement police bring a harsh tone to the demonstration. These are angry men who are ideologically committed to the settlement and scream absurd obscenities about the white internationals being part of the holocaust. They even manage to lighten up the soldiers mood a little bit by being so off the wall. But they are not joking, and they have the key to the gate.

Last friday we backed off the gate before they managed to unlock it, and retreated to a safe distance. However as soon as the settlement security officer unlocked the gate the soldiers pursued us at a quick trot down the dirt road up to the edge of the village. An older soldier grabbed a young local beit ommari boy by the arm, but he quickly slid away with a twist and bolted away with remarkable determination and speed.

We were trying to get between those soldiers and the Ommaris when they grabbed one of our staff, seemingly out of nowhere.

An Israeli friend on the scene told us later that our staff member was singled out because he had untwisted a bit of tangled up razor wire, and did not stop when the four original soldiers apparently told him to. He writhed and fought and tried to run as best as he could while the other demonstrators helplessly watched the struggle unfold, but there were too many of them. They eventually carried our staff member back up through the gate one soldier for each limb before binding him hand and foot with those little plastic ties that lock into themselves and must be cut to be taken off. As they carried him off, one of the soldiers who thought our staff member was a Palestinian national declared that he would now serve a two year sentence for what he had done.

The soldiers were young, and not unfriendly. They had the air of people who were doing their jobs. One of the soldiers asked if our staff member wanted a hat to get out of the sun. He kindly provided a wide brimmed green military cap. This enraged the the settlement officer who became immediately furious, and began to scream at the soldier. Before long he was beet-red with anger and ripped the cap from our man's head.

He was taken to Kiryat Arba where he was charged with being in an illegal area, and destruction of a security fence.

Eventually our staff member, an American from Brooklyn (not a Palestinian national), was released under the condition that he did not go to any other Palestinian district except Bethlehem for 15 days.

Internationals recieve a slap on the wrist. That's why we stood between them and the Beit Ommaris.

Searching for rural bliss in Palestine........

2009-08-03T16:14:00.001+03:00

July 18, 2009 by jordanpilgrim

…. which would be a rather hopeless search if by bliss you mean that idle idyll which we townies sometimes yearn for till the hard economic facts of country life dispel the dream. And you do not have much harsher economic facts in farming than in Palestine, with its walls and barriers and water controls. But what I was looking for was hope in the land itself: that it could for the future provide a worthwhile living for its people, sustaining them both materially and in their struggle to keep the spirit of their nation alive.

So I started in a city – Nablus

I’d been a few times before and sometimes wondered how to encourage the citizens to grow more of their own food. Now I am seeing gardens everywhere, in nooks, in corners, in the courtyards of the grand old houses with their carefully designed doorways and arched passages and shaded cool spaces. I’m wondering what the women would have wanted to see by way of planting as they contemplate the scene from their upper-floor windows.

I go back to the city later in the week and discover a youth club where they are crying out for someone to teach gardening. Social and Therapeutic Horticulture better still. But there is only one of me, I plead, making my escape; and I don’t think you can afford to pay me. Then they told me about Ali in Jenin, who has against all the odds set up a gardening business: with the special angle that it is all about roof gardens. I’m tempted to tear up my schedule and go to track him down. But the youth club has a set of students doing media studies: maybe one of them could do it, as an assignment, a story to trace and an article to write.

Half an acre of hope

Wild pigs are a headache for Murad – more than a nuisance, a pest he must defend against with stout fencing and thorny branches. The night before I arrive they breached his defences and rampaged across his land, destroying his experiment of growing three layers of crops from the same patch of ground: tall maize, mid-height beans, and melons, squashes or cucumbers along the ground. The pigs neatly picked the almonds off the tree. Shoot them ? Not allowed guns. Round them up and herd them into a truck and sell them for meat ? But who eats pork around here ? “An enemy hath done this”, as it says in the Bible. It’s not hard to share his suspicions.

From Murad’s brother’s house where I am staying, at the southern edge of the village, it’s but a stone’s throw to a row of red-roofed, detached and quite swanky houses: Ariel, one of the largest of the illegal settlements. If you look at a map of the West Bank you will see it as a dagger-shape salient well inside the “Green Line”, almost cutting in half the northern part of what was supposed to be the territory of a Palestinian state. Marda, the village of Murad and his extended family, nestles against a steep slope. The Ariel houses squat on the crest. Just a few hundred metres of rock, thorn and olive in between. But there is also a brash new road up to the settlement, and a chain-mesh and razor-wire fence, and street lights. These alien structures dominate Marda’s life – or would if the villagers let them. They turn their backs on the hill, go about their daily work as best they can, ignore the night-time sounds of partying.

Murad tells me that as a boy growing up here in the 1970s he and his brother used to go up the hill after school. It was their job to look after the family’s herd of goats. Beyond the hill crest there is another, and between the two a piece of fairly flat land where he and other boys from the village would play football while keeping an eye on their herds. In 1979 they began building the settlement, taking away the football field, the care-free after-school activity, the pastoral complement to village agriculture.

With his half acre Murad is practising permaculture, aiming to grow as much as possible for himself and his family and his neighbours; but always thinking long-term, trying to build up the fertility of the soil and its ability to hold water. He has left space for a cistern, to catch water from his polytunnel and from the neighbouring hillside and from village springs and from the training centre which he hopes to build. Every scrap of vegetable matter has a use, either for compost or strewn over the soil as a mulch. He has planted a wind-brake on the west side, on a bed raised between stones gathered off the land itself and a row of tyres: cactus and acacias and olives and citrus trees.

We come down to the site in the evening as it’s too hot to work during the day. In his polytunnel we plant cucumbers, to be joined soon by lettuces and onions. As it grows dark we walk back by another way. Donkeys pass us laden with straw, led by women up narrow paths behind a mosque to a quarter of old tower-shaped houses. Murad’s mother lives in one such house, along with daughters and son-in-law and a dozen of Murad’s nieces and nephews. We sit on a roof-top, enjoying the cool and the view and the chat of the day and the children at play.

My thoughts are running around like this: if we are to survive we have to feed ourselves from the one planet which we have; and that will not be possible unless we learn these permaculture ways of cherishing our soils and the water which feeds them. And if Palestine is to survive it has to re-connect its people with its lands, and the two or three generations which have been alienated from it will need the example of people like Murad, his expertise, his self-confidence (trained in America in the ethos and techniques of permaculture), his new knowledge added to old knowledge, above all his persistence and patience. With his family holding a respected place in the village any success from his methods will inspire his neighbours. If he did not exist we would have to invent him.

Next morning we start at 5 a.m. and finish work by 8.30 – a rhythm which makes perfect sense in these conditions. Breakfast ? Melon, naturally.

From Shepherds’ Fields to Tortoise Gardens

Beit Sahour, merging with Bethlehem but self-consciously distinct from it, has attracted pilgrims for centuries on the strength of its being the place where shepherds heard news of the birth of Christ in a nearby stable. It is a long, uphill walk to the crib.

I am walking down hill, to another permaculture project, this one peopled mainly by internationals. It is in a wadi overlooked by large new villas and it is called Bustan Qaraaqa (بستابو قراقع), Tortoise Gardens, after the many such beasts which emerge in spring. (They have the habit of hibernating during the cold months, and equally wisely disappearing into holes and crannies during these long hot dry spells.) I am noticing the way the wadi sides have been terraced, as is normal in these hills, and the ledges planted with olives. But also a series of crescent-shaped ridges in the bottom, not more than a metre high; and I see vines and shady apricot trees and a tube of sacking to shade a building at the head of the wadi.

This Bethlehem region, just south of Jerusalem, has lost its pastoral surroundings in recent years. It is ringed by illegal Israeli settlements and choked by walls and fences. Eighteen percent of its farm land was confiscated for the wall.

I do a series of working, walking and talking tours with my hosts. What I see is the fruit of not much more than a year of their occupying the site. The crescent-shaped ridges are “swales”, their purpose being to dam the rain-water which comes in downpours on just a few days in the year, relying not only on this moulding of the land but also on building up a succession of drought-hardy, deep-rooted vegetation on the banks of each “swale”; and all the litter from these trees and shrubs goes towards building up a richer soil which itself will hold more water. The building at the head of the wadi is a cistern placed so as to catch all the run-off from the road above; and the road itself catches most of the rain from the steep valley sides. The composting toilet runs on sawdust not water, and everything else that rots goes into compost bins. Every tree and shrub, it seems, has a plastic bottle guiding water to the roots. The terrace next to the house has lines of vegetables, sunflowers and shrubs held within gently-curving banks so none of the water we give them in the evening escapes.

The architects of this transformation are renting on a five-year lease, but doing everything as if they and their descendants will be here forever. They are a collective who live simply and as nearly without money as possible: guests pay a small contribution (about 15 dollars a night) towards the rent. They too work to a rhythm set by the demands of nature rather than 9 to 5. In the filtered light of a hessian awning Julian, with a little help from me and other volunteers, toils away in the afternoon improvising and adapting re-used materials to make a solar oven. (“It will never fly ! No, but it will bake cakes. Let’s just hope it does not look from the air too much like a rocket-launcher.)

Autumn and spring will be the busiest times. Much of the work will be to try and diversify what they see as a monoculture of olive and wheat: ploughing between the olives to sow the wheat makes a hard pan of soil crust just below the surface, not conducive to water conservation. They have a huge nursery of tree seedlings, grown from seeds collected from all over the world, aiming to re-populate the hills and valleys of Palestine with the natural vegetation known in ancient times but eliminated later. Some of this wealth they will use on their own land, planting up steep slopes where the terracing has collapsed; some they will sell; some they will donate to community groups or others, so long as they know the people concerned will look after the young trees.

They too, like Murad, aim to show by example. They do not have his advantage of being already part of the community. Their ways may be as alien to the local people as are those of the surrounding settlers. But they are continually refreshed by new people, new ideas coming from overseas. And unlike the settlers they are determined to be genuine neighbours – to share what they know and their faith that this knowledge is the way of the future.

Tent of nations

High above Bethlehem, some 600 feet above the Tortoise Gardens, is Dahar’s vineyard – named after the grandfather who bought the land in the early years of the twentieth century. It too is surrounded by illegal Israeli settlements. From time to time the settlers or the State, with infinite resources, require the family to prove that they own the land – and they have to go to whatever expense is required of them, as in such matters, with the courts subservient to settler interests, Palestinian landowners are guilty until they can prove themselves innocent. They now also face the threat of a high-voltage power line. If this were in Britain it would be enough to provoke howls of protest: in such a landscape its intrusion would be ghastly. More sinister still is that if it goes through they will insist on 150 metres width along it as a security corridor – with the side effect of slicing through a swathe of Dahar’s vineyard.

To combat these threats Daoud, present-day head of the family, has instituted the Tent of Nations – a camp for people from all over the world to come and work together on the land. And not just to learn to work with each other but also to support Daoud in his efforts to involve young people from the locality. For despite the city’s proximity to the hills of the West Bank, children in the refugee camps around Bethlehem (there are three) and their parents have had no access to land since their grandfathers were driven off in 1948. So now Daoud and the people from Bustan Qaraaqa are getting together to swap seeds and seedlings, and organise joint events and above all to teach the new generations: what the land gives, how to care for it, how varied and wonderful the many species of plant life are.

We inspect caves where older members of the family used to live (cool in summer, warm in winter) and make a detour to the row of olives where one of the trees was “bought” by Ewa and me in 2004. We break off sprigs of the wild mountain thyme with its heady fragrance. Bees buzz. We admire the view westward across ridge after ridge to the coastal plain and the blue Mediterranean. Rural bliss, I’m thinking. But Daoud cuts in with a description of how the jets in the recent war came screaming above this very hillside, turning to go back and strafe Gaza. Again.

'FABULOUS!!': Monthly textile observer

2009-05-22T17:46:00.034+03:00

Pleasingly, this post follows on from the last quite well. Almost as if it were planned... almost. I’ve compiled 2 events into a kind of irritating story-with-a-moral that reviewers lazily refer to as ‘compelling romps’. This romp was a 30km walk east from the vicinity of Bethlehem down and down to well below sea level at the Dead Sea, past Mar Saba and across the width of the Judean desert.

The Qaraaqa staff awoke with confusion and anger at upsetting o’clock; with much head shaking and mouthing ineffectual syllables, they congressed with the others – including the Piadia staff. The marauders lumbered away only encouraged by the promise of a barbeque and drinks after the hitch back. Apart from the odd band of curious children and a shepherd chasing his donkey down the mountain then up the next,
things were fairly uneventful until the Kidron at Mar Saba.

To continue, the river had to be crossed. The water courses are astonishingly polluted around the West Bank due to under-development of waste-treatment infrastructure. In fact, chlorine levels in the Kidron are 223ppm rather than the permissible peak for safe drinking water 4ppm. So the monks at Mar Saba would be unlikely to survive another 1700 years had they continued to rely on the Kidron as their water source.

A short, sharp climb later and the desert proper loomed. A 100 strong convoy of camels, young in tow, loped across the dunes and sauntered aloofly past.

Miscreants in jeeps hollered, ploughing through dust, photographed by giggling girls. At one point a roller leapt from a stone next to the sulking river and swept away in a shimmer of blue. It glided along the saddening polluted scar in the land that led across the desert towards journeys end. The stench and sheer quantity of rubbish seemed to stir something in the band. All of them lamented the obligatory flushing their inferior toilet designs necessitated. The staff of Bustan were pleased! Pausing only to fuel themselves with sundry items tenderised by the walk, the line of exploring misanthropes snaked east. The cliffs down to the Dead Sea, the lowest point on earth, opened a surprising view towards Jordan. The walk had been at or below sea level for the past few miles and still worlds opened up below. The Dead Sea squatted across the width of the valley, its extremity vanishing south towards the Red Sea. The view of the mushrooming currents of effluent trudging out of the desert into the Dead Sea 10km south of the tourist resorts offered a real visual no amount of lectures and education could substitute.

The descent down the final cliffs went without a hitch and the bbq was actually inspiring! Thanks to Jason and Sarah for that!

On to this past weekend. Friday saw the Ertas lettuce festival preceded by a walk and talk by Ertasi farmer and activist Awad Abuswai. Internationals and locals had congressed in considerable number. Laughter and Dabka should have drawn the eye; the scuttling Lizards, the – all too rare - crystal clear spring or the impressive ‘Solomon’s pools’.

Instead, the eye gravitated to the rubbish caught in the foliage, trampled into the ground and floating through the pools of cool water emanating from clefts in the rock.

The walk went past rusting, disused pump-houses full of stern cylinders, depressed in their dysfunction. The same ilk of harrowing and sad tales - as is familiar to those who have spent time here – were recounted to shocked ears. The group was rallied at a spot visited last year by some of the Bustan staff. Where once, 58 apricot trees had stood, now was rubble, a road and a large storm drain/sewage outlet.

The nearby settlement of Zayit – part of the Gush Etzion bloc - perched imperiously on a hill; the outlet to serve it and upstream settlements and deposit their untreated sewage in the uppermost extent of the valley in which Ertas nestles. Ertas, currently the envy of much of the surrounding area for its springs, faces an uncertain future. As the community congregated at a stage for speeches and dancing, our friend – Abed – was waiting for us to come and finish the project we had started.

I previously wrote about the wadi separating Wallaje and Gilo. While still beautiful, it is starting to crack and wilt in the heat, the annuals panicking and throwing out their seed. ‘Rex’ - the normally friendly dog lay dejected, having been assaulted by 7 wild dogs the previous night. The time spent at Ertas had seen the Israeli contingent of activists that work Abed’s land beavering away at what looked – to us – glorious: a structure that was mere hours away from being a fully functioning compost toilet.

We made walls (a sprite tarpaulin), a roof and a floor. The sprite logo on something designed to accumulate human waste seemed somewhat apt and made us very happy - to the point where we laughed (we don’t have a television).

We had only to hang the door and it could be launched. It came to be and now you can go and crap on Abed’s land and you’ll be doing him a favour.
We have preached about the issues of waste in the west-bank on this site and may others. Any human with half a brain knows the importance of water. But the past week had realised it for me. This simple structure, made voluntarily by people doing favours in their time off, built primarily with reclaimed materials is a symbol of the power of simple and affirmative action and the pride and freedom it can bring. Through 3 Fridays, we had managed to make Abed’s land easier for his visitors as there was a toilet built to cope with crowds, reduced the environmental damage and risks of downstream eutrophying effects and we had given Abed a large source of organic nutrients with which to supplement his land. That’s one down, 5 million to go! Actually, we should be aiming for the whole earth as your toilet wastes on average 30 litres of drinking water a day. A bedou family of 3 in the Jordan valley survives on less than that! This has struck a chord with some of our friends who now make the effort to use our compost toilet - if they can - to save this country valuable water and to donate their lovely, nitrogenous packets of happiness!

OK, it was neither ‘compelling’ nor a ‘romp’ but at least it’s over!

Water of life!

2009-05-19T13:11:00.006+03:00

Unless you’ve been composting your head in recent years, you will probably be aware of some of the manifestations of climate change and man’s general mismanagement of resources. Both of these, combined with over-population, have compounded the problem of water. 2 million people die of water-borne disease a year and 2.5 billion people have no access to sanitation facilities. These problems are quite clearly manifested in the West Bank and amplified due to the Israeli occupation. The Israeli authorities control the water supply, so whilst Israeli citizens are guaranteed a water supply, 10% - 20% of Palestinians are not connected up to any water infrastructure. Those that are have to make do with a fluctuating supply where the access decreases steadily as the summer progresses even though they pay 3 times the rate the settlers pay for their water.

Due to the check-points, the price of tanker-borne water has quintupled. As a result of this, many of the poorer and more rural populations take water from the badly polluted springs – contaminated by sewage and illegal Israeli factories not hampered by Israeli emission laws due to their location in the west bank.
One of the biggest issues we are trying to address with Bustan Qaraaqa is that of water security. This is valid not only for the West Bank but everywhere as global precipitation patterns change in distribution, intensity or just stop altogether. The site we have is actually a powerful tool as we are located in the lee of the ridge line occupied by Bethlehem and Jerusalem. So we get little rainfall here even compared with sites less than 10 miles away: Beit Sahour is nicknamed ‘little Jericho’ as testament to its dryness and heat. Although it’s not an ideal site for farming, it is an ideal site for establishing techniques for ‘worst-case scenario’ conditions.
As the planet warms and the Hadley cells elongate (http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn9229-global-warming-stretches-subtropical-boundaries.html), these kind of conditions will become far more widespread and people will be forced to migrate or find coping mechanisms. We are ideally placed to pre-empt this and to try and find workable solutions.
The practical actions we can take are re-foresting the area, increasing the water-holding capacity of the soil, selecting drought tolerant plants and rainwater harvesting - the latter of which we have been working furiously towards.
At the head of the land, down in the olive grove, we selected a site to build a water storage cistern. Generally only the richer Palestinians can afford to build them. We were looking for cheaper means than the concrete pouring that is generally employed these days as not only is this an ecologically unsound method, the costs are pretty prohibitive. We had 2 alternatives to produce a genuinely water-tight structure: traditional stone-building (dry stone walling in the middle-east) with a lime-skim or a concrete-skimmed breezeblock structure. We opted for the latter due to time constraints.
In the summer, work started aiming to be finished in time for the rains. There was much whip-cracking as unfortunate volunteers were worked mercilessly digging a hole to place the cistern. Thankfully a neighbour took pity and bought along a tractor to finish things off saving the staff and volunteers from a sweaty death. Left with a pit, Alice was promptly thrown into it by a malevolent olive tree during the olive harvest and was rushed to an exciting interaction with Bethlehem’s doctors.

After Christmas, we had had enough guests to be able to afford to start. Work started on the actual construction with the floor, which was poured concrete. (video) After some hilarious shouting contradictory instructions to the lone unfortunate wading around in concrete laying the floor, we had a water-proof floor. Construction halted here while we waited for the revenue from the guesthouse to amass enough again to buy materials for the walls. The rains started in earnest, the rains slowed down and finally we had enough cash. The bricklaying began. Successive waves of volunteers helped immensely; working, performing as orators, feeding us or singing; so thanks to you all! Children from the surrounding houses came to offer their expert advice and practical skills. Eventually we got to skimming the interior and, despite some dissolved body parts, to our joint relief finished that. Now we have waterproofed it and need only to fill it and put a fence around it.
So, yes. Annoyingly we missed the rains. It is still worth us filling it from the mains. Although this isn’t the rainwater-capture we had hoped for, we have a lot of trees that need irrigating and the mains are getting less and less generous. We also plan to keep Tilapia in the cistern as a source of dietary protein for ourselves and a nitrogen source for the trees. Additionally, we didn’t use the most sustainable and cheapest method. However, as they say ‘time is money’ and as there are only 3 full-time staff here we couldn’t afford to spend all our time scouring for rocks and carrying them around. However, the breezeblocks that we used massively decreased the quantity of concrete used. So we saved 12,000 shekels from the 20,000 shekel estimate for a fully concrete structure and the accompanying ecological impact.

So the trials and the tribulations of the cistern are pretty much over. When we have filled it, we will have a ‘Pool party’ complete with bbq, cocktails & floating. We’re planning on using this event as an awareness raiser as there is a possibility of a grant on the horizon to build water-storage in refugee camps. For this we’ll need workers. It’s been a long-time coming this cistern so personally I’ll be glad to have the nightmare over. I found the sheer frustration of not being able to work on such a vital part of the project for so long due to financial constraints pretty trying. At least we had the option of building this without a demolition order being slapped immediately on it though so there are blessings. We’ll keep you updated as to the timing of the pool party and if you’re in a part of the world where you can reach us: you’re invited. At the moment, the date is pencilled in for the afternoon of the 6th of june. We will keep you posted as to a definite date via the blog, Bethlehem Bethlehem, Ramallah Ramallah and the website www.bustanqaraaqa.org

Thanks again to all those who put so much literal blood and sweat into creating the cistern!

Gaza is still the issue

2009-05-17T20:23:00.004+03:00

Four months on from the end of 'Operation Cast Lead' and it seems Gaza is off the international agenda. The hail of missiles that wrought such havoc and caused so many deaths to the civilian population (over 1400) is at an end, our televisions are no longer filled with harrowing images of mutilated children and disturbing stories of food warehouses and hospitals under fire.

Yet in Gaza itself the tragedy goes on. Israeli journalist Amira Hass recently visited the Strip after several years of absence and wrote of the ongoing tragedy and destruction there: Life among the ruins in Gaza; Israel bans books, music and clothes from entering Gaza.

The truth is that Israel is continuing its strangle hold on the Gaza border, preventing reconstruction after the abject carnage that has been wrought there, a nightmare of shattered infrastructure and destroyed buildings; and preventing basic necessities from getting to the beleaguered and traumatised population.

At the beginning of this month, Palestinian human rights organisations banded together to issues a statement after a conference in Sharm el Sheikh at which $4.5 billion dollars was pledged to aid the reconstruction of Gaza, calling on international aid agencies to address the issue of Israeli restrictions on the entry of goods into Gaza, and ongoing violations of human rights (see full statement here...).

The unfortunate truth is that simply throwing money at the problem will not make it go away, not unless that action is backed up by serious attempts to hold Israel to account for abuse of human rights and violations of international law. It will not work because in the first place the aid will be ineffective as reconstruction materials are impounded on the border and the money will be wasted, and secondly, in a couple of years, the reconstructed infrastructure (supposing it ever gets reconstructed) will very likely be destroyed again, and the international community will be called on once again to foot the bill, with no repercussions for Israel.

During the crisis, as I watched in horrified disbelief merging with resigned disgust, I wrote these words:

Open a window in your soul for Gaza.

Sometimes it is more frightening to be numb than to feel.

Sometimes it is more terrible to see than to be blind.

But if they can bear the terror, the least we can do is to look with steady gaze into that holocaust and let the horror in.

And ask ourselves why?

What is Gaza and why is Gaza?

How did this tiny strip of land by the Mediterranean Sea come to be a place of such great suffering and pain?

I see a road shining darkly from Auschwitz to Gaza, fruit of the same bitter tree.

Terrible irony we say, that people who had been abused as the Jews were abused in the Holocaust could inflict such carnage on another people.

Terrible irony I think that Europeans could have watched the Holocaust happen, failed to intervene or actively participated, sacrificed Palestine to their guilt, and then stand in silent complicity watching the tragedy of Gaza unfold across the decades.

Gaza, so small a place to bear such troubles as mankind has made there, crumbling under the weight of its own tragedy.

Gaza, where one million refugees languish, children of the Holocaust as surely as the Jewish refugees who fled to Israel are.

Gaza, where the very water is poison, where there is not food, where sewage chokes the land, a festering sore on the conscience of the world, a living sacrifice to Holocaust guilt.

What solace for Gaza, where hope lies shattered beneath the rubble?

If there is hope, it does not lie with Israel, Israel which has reduced Gaza to the status of a population on life-support and is now turning off the machine.

Israel, where 90% of the population support this war.

Israel who will tighten the border controls following this onslaught if they are allowed, so that the suffering will only intensify.

Israel who have been choking the life out of Gaza for 40 long years of military occupation and 2 years of economic siege, sentencing its people to a fast death or a slow one, a short life of suffering or a long one.

What solace for Gaza now?

A ceasefire, though desperately needed, is only the beginning of ending the horror that has been created there.

Are we not proud of our creations?

Israel and Gaza.

Will we be silent now, watching from the sidelines while tragedy spreads its dark wings over these victims of circumstance and birth?

I see a road shining darkly from Auschwitz to Gaza: we are all walking on it.

Open a window in your soul for Gaza, and do not be silent.

There are other roads and we can do better than this for humanity.

*******************************

Now, just a couple of days after the 61st anniversary of the Nakba, these words come back to me. Will we watch in silence while this tragedy continues?

Bustan Qaraaqa Newsletter - May 2009

2009-05-17T16:40:00.001+03:00

Dear friends,

As spring turns to summer here in the occupied West Bank and the vegetation turns from a carpet of luscious green herbs to a thicket of spiky thorns, Bustan Qaraaqa has just passed its first anniversary (May 1st). So we thought it time to share with you our jubilation at still being here, and our thanks too all of you who have helped make this possible.

It is four months since our last (quarterly!!) newsletter, which left us struggling to continue our work in the midst of the horror of the Gaza invasion, waking up daily to the sound of fighter jets in the sky and going to sleep to the distant echoes of explosions that left over 1300 Palestinians dead.

Even during this difficult time and in spite of the feelings of despair and powerlessness that seemed to hang over everything like a miasma, we continued to move our project forward. We were able to raise enough money from Christmas guesthouse revenues to begin work on our rainwater cistern, pouring the cement base on New Year’s day in a clear statement of our commitment to take practical and positive measures to tackle humanitarian and environmental problems even in the midst of tragedy.

During January we also tightened our ties with Abed, a farmer from the village of Al Wallaja who is resisting land confiscation by Israeli authorities; living permanently in a cave on his threatened land, without running water, electricity or sewage infrastructure. You can find out more about Abed’s situation by visiting his new website: www.abedland.com.

Together with Israeli permaculture activists, we are supporting Abed in developing his site into a model for sustainable living, demonstrating that with a little imagination Palestinians can take care of their own needs, such that access to infrastructure and resources need not be a potential weapon against them.

We felt particularly privileged to be able to come together with Israelis and Palestinians in this way during the Gaza crisis, working together to tend the land, planting trees and building, supporting Abed in his struggle for justice and demonstrating our commitment to working for a better future.

As winter turned to spring, we were relieved to see the end of a two month drought which had lasted through December and January (normally the wettest months), as the rain began to fall again. Wildflowers began to run colourful riot across the land, the almond trees came into flower, tortoises awoke from hibernation and began to wander in the valley once more, migrant birds began to appear, and seeds that had been lying dormant over the winter in our tree nursery began to germinate. Almost every species we planted (over 100) came up and we now have representatives growing up in the nursery to be used in agroforestry experiments on this site or future projects with the local community. This is the only tree nursery of its sort in the Palestinian Territories, and we are very excited to see it develop.

We worked hard to plant vegetable crops through the late winter to early spring season, developing companion planting systems and growing lettuces, cabbages, onions, potatoes, radishes, caulifowers, broccoli, beetroot, spinach, strawberries, broadbeans, sunflowers, tomatoes, aubergines, peppers, melons, pumpkins and courgettes. Fortunately we also discovered (thanks to our landlandy, Im Samir) that our land is awash with edible weeds during the spring, and we were rich in delicious greens (Hubeze, Ahwera, Lofetta and Jarjiya).

In February, work began in earnest to finish the rainwater cistern: building the walls, backfilling behind them with soil and rendering them with cement and waterproof paint to prevent leakage. This entire process took somewhat longer than we had anticipated, and we only finished building at the end of March (not quite in time for the majority of the rain!). However, we now have a 90 cubic meter cistern all ready to be filled, which we hope will allow us to both irrigate trees that we intend to plant this year as part of our agroforestry system, and also to farm fish (tilapia) to supplement our diets.

Meanwhile, on another part of the site, work on the illustrious ‘Chicken Palace’ (a partially collapsed cave that we have converted into a bird house) was finished and we were able to visit the livestock market and acquire residents. The Chicken Palace is now home to a collection of guinea fowl, pigeons and chickens which we will integrate into our system to provide us with food, manure for our crops, pest control and preparation of soil for planting.

And that just about brings us up to date. Of course, throughout all of our time we have hosted many visiting groups and individuals on our site, including Palestinian students, youth counsellors, womens’ groups and farmers and many international visitors and journalists; leading tours of the site and talking about environmental issues in the Palestinian Territories and grassroots environmental activism. You can hear a radio broadcast of interviews with Bustan Qaraaqa staff and volunteers by visiting this site: http://flashpoints.net/index.html#2009-04-23 (it is the broadcast on the 23rd of April).

We are looking forward very much to the summer, when we expect to have many volunteers coming to work with us. Major projects we hope to get off the ground include Aquaculture (farming fish in our cistern), Green building (we were lucky enough to have an architecture student as a volunteer for a while who has drawn up extensive plans for an eco-building on our site built almost exclusively with recycled materials), setting up simple mushroom growing systems in caves, and expanding and strengthening our Green Intifada campaign (find out more by visiting www.bustanqaraaqa.org/al2/web/page/display/id/15.html).

We are also proud to announce that we have a new website now: www.bustanqaraaqa.org, where you can find detailed information about our projects and partners, as well as permaculture resources to help you set up your own initiatives if you feel so inclined. We are still developing this site, so if some of the links don’t work right now or there are pages missing, please be patient with us!

As ever we are deeply indebted to our supporters and volunteers for their generosity and hard work. We have been blessed with many helpers this year, hosting over 60 people at the farm in addition to our regular Friday and Sunday volunteers (thank you so much to all of you and sorry that you are too numerous to be named!).

We are also very grateful to Ed Hill and Bristol Computers4Palestine for the donation of 2 computers, Davy Jones and Meg Ryan for the reams of compost matting, Mel and Roman Gawel for the beautiful pair of guinea fowl and the solar lights, Adam Haunch for setting up our website, Erika Benson for designing us an amazing building, Mazen Qumsieh, Imogen Bright and the Sydney Family Trust for generous financial contributions, our major sponsors the Allan and Nesta Ferguson Charitable Foundation, and to Phil and Mary Gray for keeping things ticking over on the UK side.

Of course, it would not be a newsletter if we did not pathetically rattle our begging bowl at some point and say that all contributions, large or small, are needed and deeply appreciated. All the achievements of our first year (April 2008 until present) where managed on a total expenditure of £25,000 including all project expenses and staff salaries (4 full-time staff employed all year). Be assured that your money will not be wasted if you donate to us, but will be used directly for project expenses or to support the living costs of the people who make Bustan Qaraaqa work.

If you would like to become a regular contributor, please write to us at info@bustanqaraaqa.org and we will forward you our bank details. If you would like to send a cheque, please make it out to Bustan Qaraaqa and post it to The Old School, Lydfords Lane, Gillingham, Dorset, SP8 4NJ, UK. If you would like your money to be used for something specific, you can find a ‘wish list’ of things we need on our website, on the Get Involved page.

That is enough begging for now! We wish joy and light to all of you wherever you may be, and hope to see you (again!) in Bethlehem – please do come and visit us if you are in the area.

With love,

Alice, Nick, Rania, Roman, Steve and Tom
x

the Bustan Qaraaqa team

Bustan Qaraaqa has a new website....

2009-04-23T11:48:00.003+03:00

Our new website is now up and running - please go to www.bustanqaraaqa.org to check it out. There you will find detailed information about our project and also useful links for learning more about permaculture and Palestine. Please bear with us if some of the links don't work yet - the site is a work in progress and we are building it up as and when we can...

We will continue to use this blog to post stories and reflections from Bustan Qaraaqa staff and volunteers.

Many thanks to Adam for setting up the website for us :)

Compost Toilet Building Event this Friday

2009-04-07T22:16:00.002+03:00

This Friday (April 10th) Bustan Qaraaqa staff and volunteers will go to help build a composting toilet at our friend Abed's farm in Al Wallaja.

Abed is living on his land close to Gilo settlement, resisting attempted land confiscation by Israeli real-estate developers. His site has no running water, so it is important that a well managed composting toilet is installed there to make life easier.

Composting toilets have other benefits too: 90% of sewage in the West Bank is discharged untreated into the environment, poisoning soil, water courses and threatening the underground aquifer that is the source of all drinking water in this area. In addition, on average every person flushes 30 litres of drinking water down the toilet every day. Given the ongoing drought in the region, this is profligately wasteful and environmentally suicidal.

Action by individuals like Abed, whereby waste is treated onsite and no water is wasted can help change this situation.

Also, there will be a farmers' market on the same day - a chance to buy fresh organically produced vegetables directly from the farmers of Al Wallaja.

If you would like to come, we will be leaving from Bustan Qaraaqa at 1030am on Friday - or join us when you can at Abed's place, close to the Malha checkpoint on the road to Jerusalem. It is easily accessed by taking the beautiful road through Cremisan monastery and then taking the track to the right into the valley - call us on 02 2748994 for more detailed directions if you like.

All the best and hope to see you on Friday,

the Bustan Qaraaqa team
x

Tree Planting Event this Thursday

2009-03-22T20:02:00.002+02:00

This Thursday (March 26th), we will be holding a tree planting event at our friend Abed's place in Al Wallaja.

Abed is a Palestinian farmer whose land lies very close to the Israeli Settlement of Gilo. He is currently facing problems with threatened land confiscation and so has decided to live permanently on his land in a cave. The authorities are now threatening to demolish even this basic home in an attempt to evict him from his land.

The place has no running water or electricity, and Abed lives by farming his land to feed himself and generate some income.

The event on Thursday will consist of planting olive trees, and also laying the foundations of a composting toilet to serve the site.

We will meet in Soukshab in Beit Sahour at 10.00am if anyone would like to come. Alternatively, call 02 274 8994 or email info@eag-palestine.org for more information.

If you are coming, please bring some food to share for lunch and we will have a picnic.

Hope to see you there!

Food for free!

2009-03-18T20:17:00.006+02:00

lufeta, ﻟﻔﻴﺘﺔ, hwera, ﺃﺣﻮﯿﺮﺓ, halawlaw, ﺣﻠﻮﻟﻮ, khubeza, ﺧﺒﯿﺰﺓ

As I am typing in the cold house a ploughman and mule toil under the olives. The ploughman guides the shear through the thin soil of the narrow terrace, weaving between the twisting trunks, slicing the sward of pink and yellow flowers, folding the herbs into to the furrows, exposing the pale dry earth.

The terraces built on the valley sides of Judean Hills were first constructed as long as eight thousand years ago at the drawn of agriculture. Ploughing is a long established in dry land farming. In theory the exposed tilth caps the soil reducing the rate of loss of soil moisture. Not to plough would result in a faster rate of soil moisture loss through the transpiration of herbs. It is also feared that the herbs when dead and dry provide habitat for scorpions, snakes, and spiders, and could constitute a fire risk.

Minimum tillage, (not ploughing) conserves soil structure essential for permeability to water and gasses. The plant roots bind the soil together resisting the water erosion (drop impact and runoff) and wind erosion. Soil erosion carries the organic particles and fine silts down to the Dead Sea were no one can use them, impoverishing soils and contributing to desertification. In the Judean Hills soil erosion of 50tonnes/hectare/year is the recorded average (wadis (flood plains) are far more erosive environments). Failing rains, over grazing and ploughing result in soil erosion threatening the future of agriculture regionally. Combining minimum tillage with soil water conservation techniques such as drip point irrigation, mulching and shading by trees could not only conserve soil moisture and fertility but even improve them whilst providing a variety of foods for the table.

Problem becomes a solution
Waste becomes resource
The weed becomes food

All that is necessary is a shift of perception

Seeing these delicious herbs turned into the earth I’m thinking how beautiful are their flowers, what diverse life they support through the brief spring season, how they will shade the soil from the burning summer sun, but most of all I’m thinking how much I want to eat them.

I first became aware we could eat the weeds when the neighbours asked to collect the hwera growing under our olives as they had ploughed under their trees. I’ve since noticed bunches of common weeds for sale in Bethlehem souk.

Here’s how we prepare these herbs in the Bustan Qaraaqa kitchen. (Thanks Im Samir!)

All herbs are best collected before they begin to flower. Prepare the food the same day you collect it. One kilo is a good quantity if you intend to feed a few people.

All these herbs can be eaten raw.

lufeta, ﻟﻔﻴﺘﺔ , halawlaw, ﺣﻠﻮﻟﻮ, khubeza, ﺧﺒﯿﺰﺓ

Wash the leaves and stems thoroughly and chop finely.
Melt butter in a large saucepan with a lid and add chopped onion and black pepper.
Fry the onions gently for five minutes then add all the greens and replace the lid. Turn the heat down as low as possible.
After a couple of minutes stir the greens, replace the lid and turn off the heat.
Juice one lemon to add the greens before serving hot or cold (much better hot).

Alternatively, make bread dough, after the final kneading spread the dough thinly like a thick pizza base and then spread the hubeza/lufeta/halawlaw, over the dough. Now roll the dough like a Swiss roll and bake in a hot oven.

hwera, ﺃﺣﻮﯿﺮﺓ

Hwera is prepared differently.

Wash the leaves and stems thoroughly and chop finely.
Place the chopped leaves in a basin add cold yogurt and a pinch of salt. Leave over night in a cool place. Serve covered in olive oil with plenty of fresh bread. Zaki!

text and photos by Tom

Plant of the Week

2009-03-02T21:46:00.002+02:00

This week the plant of the week is...........

Leucaena leucocephala (Wild Tamarind)

Leucaena leucocephala is a native tree of the Yucatan peninsula in southern Mexico. It is an upright, leggy tree that can grow up to a height of 18 m. It has grey bark and bipinnate leaves of up to 35 cm in length. It produces numerous cream-coloured flowers in globose (spherical) heads.

During the 1970s and early 1980s, Leucaena was known as the ‘miracle tree’ because of its worldwide success as a long-lived and highly nutritious forage tree, and its great variety of other uses.

Leucaena is in the Fabaceae family, and is a leguminous tree which forms associations with nitrogen fixing mycorrhizae, and so improves the fertility of the soil it grows on. It is a fast growing tree and can be used as a fuel-wood and to make high quality charcoal. It is excellent fodder for ruminant livestock, and parts of it can be eaten by people as well (young seed pods and young shoots). It is also the most frequently used tree in alley-planting systems, and has proven to be highly compatible with many grass crops.

Alley-planting is an inter-cropping system where hedgerows of trees are created along the contour line of a slope, providing wind-break, erosion control, soil enhancement (in the case of leguminous trees) and shade. Crops are planted in between the hedgerows.

Leucaena is a drought tolerant tree and can survive up to 7 consecutive dry months in the year. It does best in precipitation zones of over 600 mm per year, but has become naturalized in areas with rainfall as low as 300 mm per year. It prefers calcerous, neutral to alkaline soils and is somewhat sensitive to frost damage.

It is very well suited to the temperatures and soil type at Bustan Qaraaqa, but will probably require a small amount of irrigation in the late autumn and early spring.

Funding Appeal

2009-02-22T13:40:00.005+02:00

Bustan Qaraaqa is running short of funds! As a small and recently established project, we are heavily reliant on grassroots fundraising to keep our heads above water. If you admire our work, please consider supporting us - either by making a personal contribution or by fundraising for us.

Cheques payable to Bustan Qaraaqa can be sent to The Old School, Lydfords Lane, Gillingham, Dorset, SP8 4NJ, or if you prefer to make a transfer direct to our bank account, please contact us for our details (info@eag-palestine.org).

We are a very low budget project, so small amounts can make a huge difference to us. A breakdown of our monthly costs is shown below:

The exchange rate currently oscillates between 5 and 6 shekels to the pound, and 3.5 to shekels to the US dollar. So the total budget (12000 shekels) is £2000-2400 and $3000-3430.

Any excess money we have can be spent on community projects. Any shortfall is made up by cutting living allowances for staff and the materials budget.

Ideally, we would like to bring more staff onto our team (a Field Worker and an Environmental Education Coordinator), but at the moment this is not possible – another 4000 NIS per month would cover it.

Fundraising can be good fun, and can serve the dual purpose of raising awareness about the Palestinian environmental crisis.

Some ideas for fundraising:

Organise a party or music event, either in your own home or at a venue. Advertise it as a fundraiser for a permaculture farm in Palestine, charge a small entrance fee and have information available in the form of a photo exhibition or leaflets that you hand out.

Organise a film showing or lecture about Palestine and Palestinian farmers and collect donations from the audience.

Organise a Palestinian themed evening, with Palestinian food and music and charge a small entrance fee.

Sell Palestinian merchandise. Particularly if you are coming out to Palestine and returning home, invest in some nice olive wood carvings, key-rings and t-shirts and sell them for a small profit.

If you would like to fundraise for us, please be in contact (+972 2 2748994 or email info@eag-palestine.org), and we will forward you a support pack.

Donate:

Small donations can go a long way! If you feel you would like to contribute financially, cheques payable to Bustan Qaraaqa can be sent to The Old School, Lydfords Lane, Gillingham, Dorset, SP8 4NJ, UK.

Better yet, become a regular contributor. If 400 people gave us £5 per month, our budget would be completely covered, and we would be in a stable funding situation. If you would like to support us in this way, please be in touch (info@eag-palestine.org) and we will forward you our bank details.

Thank you for your interest in our work! We appreciate all the help we have had in the past and all the help we are receiving now. Your support makes our work possible!

Plant of the Week

2009-02-19T20:28:00.003+02:00

This week, the Plant of the Week is........................

Annona Cherimola - the Custard Apple

The custard apple is believed to be a native tree of the inter-andean valleys of Ecuador, Colombia and Peru, and has been successfully cultivated in Israel. It is a dense, fast-growing, evergreen tree, erect but low branched and somewhat shrubby or spreading; ranging from 5 to 9 m in height.

The tree bears fragrant flowers with three outer, greenish, fleshy, oblong petals and three inner pinkish petals. The fruits are 10-20 cm long and about 10cm in width, with a sub-acid flavour. Mark Twain called the cherimola fruit “the most delicious fruit known to men”.

The cherimola is sub-tropical to mild-temperate. It can tolerate light frosts, and prefers dry environments with long, dry summers, although it grows best at an annual precipitation range of 1250-2500 mm. It prefers soils of pH from 6.5 to 7.6, and is somewhat calcium demanding.

It is well suited to the calcate, limey soil of Bustan Qaraaqa, and the temperature range, but will require some irrigation from the early spring to the beginning of summer.

Report on Olive Planting Activity in Al Wallaja

2009-02-19T20:18:00.003+02:00

by Roman Gawel, Bustan Qaraaqa volunteer

On Monday February 9th, Bustan Qaraaqa team members and volunteers joined a group of olive tree planters from the East Jerusalem YMCA’s Keep Hope Alive campaign to plant 200 trees on the land of a farmer (Na’el Khalil) in the village of Al Wallaja.

The Keep Hope Alive campaign is an initiative to plant olive trees for farmers who have had their land confiscated by the Israeli occupation in order to make way for the Wall or for Israeli settlements, and also to plant internationally sponsored trees on land that is threatened with confiscation (read more).

Al Wallaje is a village we have worked in quite a lot in recent months. It is located on the northwest side of Bethlehem city, and is unfortunate enough to be trapped between the Green Line (Palestine’s internationally recognized border with Israel) and the Wall. The villagers have already lost over 80% of their land, the whole village having been uprooted in 1948 and moved to the east of the Green Line, and then again in 1967 when the municipal boundaries of Jerusalem were moved. Initially they owned over 18 square kilometres of land, whereas now they have access to just two and a half square kilometres. As the village is bordered by two settlements (Gilo and Har Gilo) they are under constant threat of further land confiscation to make way for settlement expansion. In addition, many of the houses in the village have demolition orders pending on them, as the Israeli authorities have refused villagers permission to build homes.

Na’el himself faces possible demolition of his family’s home and his two greenhouses, where he grows vegetables which feed the family and provide them with much of their income.

On Monday, together with 39 international volunteers and the staff of the East Jerusalem YMCA, we planted around 200 Olive trees on the terraces of Na’el Khalil’s land facing out over the wadi and the land lost to the Israeli authorities. An enjoyable, though hot and humid day ensued as we laboured in the unseasonably hot weather. The JAI volunteers got to hear more stories of the impacts of the occupation and to see some of the local amazing flora. This year, the drought is even worse than last year’s record breaker. Na’el was trying new planting techniques to maximise the chances of the trees taking and Qaraaqa staff managed to help with building water catchments around the newly planted trees to enhance their chances of survival in the dry year.

After the tree planting was done, the JAI volunteers went off to a talk, so we went down into the wadi to investigate the stolen land. Despite the lack of rainfall, the olive groves were carpeted with wild-flowers. We managed to procure a large amount of seeds and cuttings of the local flora. It became painfully obvious that this land was far and away more productive than that which remained in the villagers’ charge. The area used to be oak, olive and carob woodland with a scrubby under-storey.

As we walked, we happened upon something upsetting: tree planting (probably done by the Jewish national fund) had occurred between the settlements and the village of Al Wallaja. They had chosen to plant pine trees. The areas with mature pines were covered in un-decayed needles, the biome barely able to process them. The soil biota had clearly been warped so the scrubby bushes vital for the survival of tortoises and gazelles were gone. Row upon row of sapling pine was planted along the length of the wadi in this beautiful and fertile spot. When these plants reach full maturity, it will turn the area into what will be effectively a forested desert for the local wildlife and cause huge erosion as the under-storey disappears.

These trees seem to have been planted with the political objective of denying villagers access to the land on which they stand. The choice of tree itself is worrying – is it ecological vandalism, with the aim of rendering the land useless for farming or is it ignorance? One thing is certain: the outcome of this type of tree-planting will be one of ecological destruction, and it is a matter of time before the land is rendered useless for anyone, Palestinian or Israeli, Arab or Jew.

What's Growing in the Nursery?

2009-02-10T19:06:00.004+02:00

After months of hard work, our native tree nursery is now up and running, and the first shoots are starting to appear. So what are we growing and why?

Well, we are trying to assemble a wide selection of trees that are suited to the climate here and that provide a whole phalanx of useful services, including soil improvement, facilitation of other crops, food, fuel, fodder for animals, medicine, detergents, and of course being beautiful to look at. We are prioritizing native trees of the region, many of which are endangered species.

So far we have planted:
Calotropis procera (the Sodom Apple), a native of the Dead Sea basin
Ceratonia siliqua (the Carob tree), a drought hardy ubiquitous tree of the area
Acer obtusifolium (the Syrian Maple), the only native maple
Acacia tortillis, a hardy tree often found in the Judean desert and the Naqab
Styrax officinalis, the snowdrop bush, used for making incense
3 species of native oak (Quercus calliprenos, boissieri and libanii)
and Rhamnus lycioides (Palestine Buckthorn), a pioneer often used to remediate soil in afforestation projects.

We have also planted several non-natives, including:
Cassia fistula (Indian laburnum), Delonix regia (the flame tree), Moringa perigrina (a native of the Red Sea region), Anona cherimola (the Custard Apple), Leuceana leucocephala (the Lead tree - a fodder crop), Tipuana tipu (Rosewood), and Prosopis glandulosa (Honey Mesquite).

We have thousands more seeds in stock, and will continue to expand our nursery as we are able. Our priority at the moment is to grow groups of trees that are useful pioneers, colonizing and improving degraded soils, thus combating soil erosion and facilitating the growth of other species. Pioneer trees that are also good fodder crops for goats are particularly useful, since they can serve the dual purpose of supporting the livelihoods of herders and slowing overgrazing.

We will try to post regularly each week with a detailed description of the 'Tree of the Week', chosen from amongst the stock that is growing in our nursery.

This week, our 'Tree of the Week' is Calopteris procera - the amusingly named Sodom Apple:

Calotropis procera (Sodom Apple, Kisher/Usher in Arabic)

The Sodom Apple is a native tree of Palestine, found in the east, along the Jordan Valley. It is a small, shrubby tree (about 2m in height), with corky branches, simple oblong leaves, dense, multiflowered inflorescenses, and ovoid fruits containing silky fibres. All parts of the plant exude latex when cut or broken.

The tree is both drought tolerant and salt tolerant. It grows well in sandy soils in areas of low rainfall. Often colonizes overgrazed areas and abandoned areas of cultivation.

The young pods, senescing leaves and flowers are a good fodder for goats. Stems produce good charcoal and also make good timber for roofs and building huts. The latex contains 11-23% rubber, although it is a cardiotoxic poison and should be handled with care.

In addition, many parts of the plant have medicinal uses. An infusion of bark powder is used in the treatment and cure of leprosy and elephantiasis. The root bark is an emetic, the flower a digestive, and a tonic is used for asthma and catarrh. Bark and wood stimulate lactation in cattle. Roots (extremely poisonous) are applied for snakebite. The milky sap is used as a rubefacient and is also strongly purgative and caustic. The latex is used for treating ringworm, guinea worm blisters, scorpion stings, venereal sores and ophthalmic disorders; also used as a laxative. The twigs are applied for the preparation of diuretics, stomach tonic and anti-diarrhoetics and for asthma. Also used in abortion, as an anthelmintic, for colic, cough, whooping cough, dysentery, headache, lice treatment, jaundice, sore gums and mouth, toothache, sterility, swellings and ulcers.

Sodom Apple is also a soil improver, increasing soil moisture content and decreasing soil erosion, as well as being a good source of green manure.

Cistern building and tree planting day - Sunday February 1st

2009-01-29T20:27:00.002+02:00

This Sunday (February 1st) we will be having an open volunteer day at our permaculture farm, building the walls of our cistern and working on our native tree nursery. If you would like to come along and spend a fun day working outside you are very welcome.

We will start at about 10.30am, and work until it gets dark. Please bring some food to share of you will be here at lunchtime and we can enjoy a picnic in beautiful surroundings.

Call us on 02 2748994 if you need directions to get here.

Hope to see you on Sunday,

Alice, Tom, Steve and Roman

the Bustan Qaraaqa team
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COHRE statement on water and sanitation catastrophe in Gaza

2009-01-22T13:12:00.001+02:00

The collapse of Gaza's water and waste water sector: Grave breaches of international humanitarian law and serious violations of international human rights law

Following twenty two consecutive days of Israeli aggression on the Gaza Strip, water and sanitation services and facilities are on the brink of collapse. The water and sanitation sector was already in a dire state following the 18 month blockade on Gaza, which had prevented the entry of material necessary for construction and repair of water and sanitation facilities as well as the fuel and electricity necessary to operate essential services such as sewage pumping stations and water wells. Israel's aerial bombardment of the Gaza Strip beginning on the 27 December 2008 and the ground invasion beginning on the 3 January 2009 have turned an already desperate humanitarian situation into a catastrophe.

Currently more than half a million residents of the Gaza Strip (a third of the population) have no access to clean water. Some have been without water for over ten days. The Costal Municipalities Water Utility (CMWU) the water sector service provider in Gaza, has announced that it is no longer able to maintain services in the water and waste water sector due to concerns for staff safety and an acute shortage of spare parts, materials, equipment, electricity and fuel required to rehabilitate facilities and operate services.

Israeli military attacks have caused extensive damage to water and sanitation infrastructure. Due to damage to water pipes more than 30,000 residents in Nussierate city are without a water supply as well as more than 200,000 residents in Gaza City. Destruction of El Edara well has left more than 25,000 people in Jabalia city without a water supply. Damage to an electrical transistor that operates a water well, has left more than 40,000 residents of southern Tal Al Hawa city without water. Destruction of water filling points has been reported, long queues of people are waiting at water filling points and water trucks are desperately needed to supply those without access to a water supply. Three staff members from the Palestinian Water Authority have been killed during the course of Israel's military assault on Gaza, two working in the waste water sector and one who was working at a water well at the time.

Sewage is currently overflowing into residential areas posing an extreme threat to people's health and the environment. The main sewerage line in Beit Hanoun has been destroyed and the main power generator at Beit Lahia waste water treatment plant has been attacked. Due to the presence of Israeli troops in the Netzarim area the Gaza waste water treatment plant has stopped operating and is in danger of collapse. Waste water from this plant is now reported to be flooding the area up to 1 km distance from the plant. The waste water level at the main Beit Lahia waste water lagoon is increasing due to lack of electricity to operate it and could collapse releasing millions of cubic metres of waste water into surrounding areas threatening lives and property. So far appeals for materials to repair damaged infrastructure and coordination for technicians to access the area have been denied by the Israeli authorities.

Whilst armed Palestinian factions have breached international humanitarian law by launching rockets into civilian areas inside Israel, the indiscriminate and excessive use of force employed by the Israeli military in the Gaza Strip violates international humanitarian law. As an occupying power in Gaza, maintaining effective control of Gaza's territory, Israel remains responsible for the welfare of the civilian population and is obliged to uphold international human rights law and the Fourth Geneva Convention in the Gaza Strip. Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions (I-IV) states that “Persons taking no active part in the hostilities… shall in all circumstances be treated humanely”. Additional Protocol I to the Geneva Conventions makes clear that “It is prohibited to attack, destroy, remove or render useless objects indispensable to the survival of the civilian population, such as food-stuffs, crops, livestock, drinking water installations and supplies and irrigation works”.[1] Indiscriminate attacks on civilians, and civilian property and infrastructure are therefore strictly prohibited. However, Israel has directly targeted water and sanitation infrastructure and the CMWU reports that all basic water and sanitation infrastructure has been destroyed in areas that were subject to Israeli military attack. This includes a direct hit on the Gaza City Waste Water Treatment Plant on 10 January. On 18 January a water well was destroyed in the Abu Ghazala area of Beit Hanoun causing the death of a one and a half year old child whose family's house was located near to the well.

Article 48 of Protocol I Additional to the Geneva Conventions makes clear that; "the Parties to the conflict shall at all times distinguish between the civilian population and combatants and between civilian objects and military objectives and accordingly shall direct their operations only against military objectives." Attacks on water and sanitation infrastructure and technicians carrying out their duties in relation to water and waste-water services cannot be seen to conform to this requirement. Both Israel and armed Palestinian groups are obliged to stop such unlawful attacks immediately and risk being held accountable for war crimes.

As an occupying power, under international humanitarian and human rights law, Israel is responsible for the welfare of the civilian population and must ensure that Palestinians are provided with or allowed to secure the basics for survival including food, water, medical supplies and shelter. Prisoners of war and/or protected persons are guaranteed access to drinking water, water for personal hygiene and sanitation under the Geneva Conventions.[2] The fourth Geneva Convention, relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War (1949) states that an occupying power is responsible for maintaining public health and hygiene in an occupied territory which necessitates the provision of clean drinking water and adequate sanitation.[3] It further states “If the whole or part of the population of an occupied territory is inadequately supplied, the Occupying Power shall agree to relief schemes on behalf of the said population, and shall facilitate them by all the means at its disposal”.[4] Under the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, a human rights treaty ratified by the State of Israel, all people are guaranteed the right to an adequate standard of living and the right to the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health which includes the right to safe and sufficient water and affordable and accessible water and sanitation services and facilities.

Rather than fulfilling its obligations under international human rights and humanitarian law, Israeli attacks have reduced access to water and sanitation and Israel has taken no steps to remedy such access. Denying the civilian population the means necessary for their survival in this manner or hindering the provision of humanitarian aid, is a war crime and is recognized as such by The Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (1998).[5] It makes clear that “For the purpose of this Statute, “war crimes” means … Intentionally using starvation of civilians as a method of warfare by depriving them of objects indispensable to their survival, including wilfully impeding relief supplies as provided for under the Geneva Conventions”.[6]

COHRE calls upon:

· The international community to ensure that Security Council Resolution 1860 is immediately implemented which calls for an immediate, durable and fully respected ceasefire, leading to the full withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza, and the unimpeded provision and distribution throughout Gaza of humanitarian assistance.

· High Contracting Parties to the Geneva Conventions should immediately convene to ensure Israel's compliance with the Geneva Conventions (Article 1) and hold perpetrators responsible for grave breaches to account (Article 146).

· All States should impose targeted economic sanctions upon Israel to the extent consistent with international human rights law. Such sanctions should apply, in particular, on exports from Israel into their countries and their own export of military arms and equipment to Israel.

· The European Union and member states should immediately suspend the EU-Israel Association Agreement and all economic ties with Israel in line with the European Union Guidelines on Promoting Compliance with International Humanitarian Law (2005) which calls for the imposition of sanctions and other restrictive measures to ensure compliance with international humanitarian law and bring perpetrators of violations to justice before domestic courts or an international criminal tribunal such as the International Criminal Court.

· MERCOSUR should suspend its free-trade agreement with Israel.

· Egypt should immediately lift all restrictions on the flow of civilian imports and exports into and from Gaza. The Arab League should urge Egypt to do so.

For more information please contact:

Lara El-Jazairi, Legal Officer, Centre on Housing Rights and Evictions: lara@cohre.org. Tel: +44 (0)7961908714.

A previous COHRE report Hostage to Politics: The impact of sanctions and the blockade on the human right to water and sanitation in Gaza (June 2008) is available for download at: www.cohre.org/opt

Established in 1992, the Centre on Housing Rights and Evictions (COHRE) is an independent, international, non-governmental human rights organization committed to ensuring the full enjoyment of economic, social and cultural rights for everyone, everywhere, with a particular focus on the human right to adequate housing and adequate public services for all. COHRE is registered as a not-for-profit foundation in the Netherlands. COHRE has an international secretariat based in Geneva, and regional offices for Africa, North America, South America and Asia/Pacific. COHRE's Right to Water Programme has been working on Israel and the occupied Palestinian territory since 2007.

Planting Day @ Bustan Qaraaqa this Sunday

2009-01-21T20:08:00.002+02:00

We warmly invite anyone who would like to come to join us this Sunday (25th January) to plant up our land. We will be sowing houmous and alfalfa down in the valley, and it should be a really nice day, working outside in beautiful surroundings.

We plan on starting at about 10.30am (it is fine to join later as well!), and if you could bring something to share for lunch, it will be really nice to have a picnic together.

If you have never visited us before, call us on 02 274 8994 for directions (although is you manage to get as far as Soukshab in Beit Sahour, most of the taxi drivers know where we are).

Hope to see you on Sunday

The Bustan Qaraaqa team
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Starting the New Year in hope and despair

2009-01-21T14:08:00.004+02:00

What a way to start a year. Our days are dominated by the drone of Israeli fighter jets in the sky, on their way to bomb Gaza, their trails writing messages of death amongst the clouds. Occasionally our house is shaken by the force of the explosions happening 50km away, and sometimes at night as we sit around our fire we hear the sound of them carried to us on the still air.

Unimaginable carnage in Gaza - its darkness touches all of us, hovers behind everything we do and say at this time. The only hope we can have is that this time the world will look - truly look - at Gaza, and demand a better future for her people than the hell they have been subjected to for years.

Do look, if you can bear it. Flinch and look away by all means, but look back again and understand that those people need much more than a ceasefire to restore to them the norms of human dignity that we all expect as our rights.

This 'unilateral' ceasefire that has been declared is fragile and may not hold. Even if it does, it seems that, left to their own devices, the Israelis will only tighten the border control, holding up the desperately needed humanitarian aid, hampering development, intensifying suffering.

It is for the international community to intervene now, to come down on the side of human rights for Gazans, to demand and enforce conditions which will allow development in Gaza to go forward. We would urge anyone reading this to agitate for change, write to your politicians, demonstrate - whatever you feel you can do and whatever it takes to get the human rights of Gazans on the agenda, beyond the ceasefire. We suggest that peace and security will follow easing of humanitarian suffering much more surely than they will follow from the kind of hideous, murderous onslaught that Israel has unleashed over the past few weeks.

Well, besides watching, horrified, distraught and helpless from the sidelines as this horrible situation has unfolded, we have been busy at Bustan Qaraaqa this month. We started the year by sealing the floor of our rainwater cistern and are now working on the walls. However, at this stage it seems certain that this year will be an even worse drought than the last - which was the worst in 26 years. Rain is not falling in Palestine, water resources are not recharging, and we fear for the people and the environment, particularly the vulnerable communities who do not have regular water supplies - over 200 000 Palestinians in the West Bank are not connected to the water network and over half the people do not receive full coverage (constant supply).

Nevertheless, we have been planting crops. We are developing a companion planting system with many commonly grown food crops such as spinach, radishes, potatoes, lettuces, cabbages, strawberries etc. grown alongside various herbs and flowers (we will post a more detailed outline of this soon). We have also been planting trees in the nursery, especially drought tolerant native species which we believe could make good fodder crops for livestock. This is particularly important as overgrazing and soil erosion are huge problems in the West Bank and we hope to be able to do some work to remediate the degradation of the Eastern Slopes presently.

We have also been attending work-days in Al Wallaja at the weekends, working alongside Palestinians and Israelis to help our friend Abed develop his site and resist land confiscation.

Abed lives very close to the Israeli settlement of Gilo, in a cave on his family's land. His parents moved to Dheisha refugee camp in Bethlehem many years ago, but retained ownership of their land in Wallaja. However, in recent years, due to settlement expansion, their land has been threatened with confiscation. So Abed has gone to live there and farm, managing without electricity or running water, working with the support of Palestinian, Israeli and international friends who support his right to stay on the land his family have owned for generations. Absurdly he now faces an Israeli demolition order on his cave, but is fighting it in the courts.

We have been helping Abed to plant trees, build a water catchment and make a space for volunteers to sleep if they want to stay with him on his land.

We too have been lucky to have the help of many volunteers this month - Roman, Grace, Abby, Les, Amelia, Matthew, Avi, Noam, Vita, Osan and Frederick - and we look forward to new arrivals in the near future.

As ever, our funding situation is somewhat precarious....at the end of February we will no longer be able to pay living allowances to our long-term staff, although thankfully the rent is payed on the site until the end of June. If you would like to support our work please do get in touch with us (info@eag-palestine.org).

A small donation can go a long way in buying materials for the tree nursery and for the cistern (we think we need around 3000 shekels to finish the cistern, and about 1500 shekels for the nursery). Also, if you would like to support us on a monthly basis with a small amount, it could be very helpful to develop a steady income stream - any amount is gratefully received! If 100 people gave us £10 a month we would never have to worry about living allowances again :)

Well, dear readers, that is enough new from us for now. We will post more stories soon, and we hope to also have a proper website in the near future, with detailed information about the Bustan Qaraaqa project, its work and its goals - we will post the address when it is ready!

Stay tuned for more stories from the Tortoise Garden...............

Picking up the pieces in Gaza

2009-01-06T16:22:00.001+02:00

Picking up the pieces in Gaza
by Alice Gray

Eventually it will come to that of course. When this latest festival of death is over, when Israeli politicians decide that the status quo in Gaza has been suitably altered, when enough ‘militants’ have died to make the whole operation ‘worthwhile’.

Who knows? Perhaps Israel will even manage to force regime change in Gaza and oust the Hamas government, although it seems unlikely. Similar tactics (and by that I mean mass murder of civilians in the hope that they will turn on their leaders) have failed utterly in the past to produce the desired results – think Lebanon 2006 or Operation Defensive Shield, 2002. Neither Arafat nor the Hezbollah suffered any diminishment in their popularity on these occasions – rather the reverse in fact.

Even if Hamas where ousted, it seems unlikely that the Fatah party would be foolish enough to accept an Israeli enforced coup. And so it seems likely, as Robert Fisk has recently observed, that Israel will in time talk to the ‘bloodsoaked terrorists’ of Hamas, just as they talked to the ‘bloodsoaked terrorists’ of the PLO before them, the bombing will stop and the troops will withdraw. And what will be left, as the spotlight of the global media swings to some other crisis in some other troubled land?

An impoverished and traumatized population, mourning their dead. Shattered, overcrowded cities and refugee camps with inadequate infrastructure to serve the needs of their residents. A poisoned and degrading environment with inadequate resources to sustain the people of Gaza. A government with no sovereignty over borders, airspace or coast. A frozen development process, with little possibility to improve the humanitarian situation or halt the environmental degradation. This is the status quo in Gaza and this is what needs to change.

Wearisome as it is to trot out the same facts again and again, it is necessary to remind the world of the ongoing tragedy of Gaza, the slow rot that is, day by day and year by year, destroying the very fabric of the country, so that, in effect Gaza’s population are on life-support, with Israel controlling the lifelines.

Here are some of the facts again:

Gaza’s population numbers 1.5 million people, compressed into 365 square kilometres, further compressed because Israel controls a ‘buffer zone’ along the border which varies in width from 150 metres to over 1000 metres.

There is insufficient land to supply the food needs of the population, and such land as there is is increasingly degraded and polluted with agricultural chemicals, industrial effluents and untreated sewage.

There is insufficient water in the aquifer that underlies Gaza to supply the basic needs to the population. As a result, the aquifer is overdrawn and degraded as year by year the water level drops and sea water spills in from the neighbouring Mediterranean. In 2000, 90% of the drinking water was unfit for human consumption by international standards, and the situation has only deteriorated since then.

Sewage infrastructure is completely underdeveloped. There are 3 wastewater treatment plants in Gaza but all are overloaded and in need of upgrading. In March 2007, a sewage lagoon in Beit Lahiya in northern Gaza broke, and the resulting wave of sewage swamped a nearby village, Um Nassar, killing 5 people and making thousands homeless. 80% of sewage is discharged untreated into the environment, contaminating soil, water and coastline.

Gaza has one oil-powered electrical plant, supplying electricity to water pumping stations, sewage works, hospitals and residents. In addition, electricity is imported from Israel via 10 feeder cables. When the power supply is cut, pumping stations and hospitals function on diesel powered standby generators. Israel controls the flow of fuel into Gaza and since October 2007, heavy restrictions in the supply of both fuel and electricity have crippled Gaza, interfering with water supply, sanitation and the operation medical machinery in hospitals.

Efforts to implement development projects in Gaza are severely hampered by Israeli restrictions which obstruct the import of vital materials such as cement and pipelines. Vital infrastructure is damaged during Israeli military operations, and it is not always possible to repair it. In June 2006, the transformers at the Gaza Electric Company were destroyed in an Israeli air-raid. The capacity of the power-station was reduced from 140 megawatts to 80 megawatts. Numerous water-wells, pumping stations and pipelines were also damaged.

According to the latest report from Gaza’s water authority, at least 3 wells and one major pipeline have been hit by Israeli airstrikes. In addition, the power-lines supplying other wells have been brought down. Over 530 000 people are without water supply, sewage is backing up in the streets and there is concern that the Beit Lahiya sewage lagoon will break again as the level is rising by 2 cm every day. A major sewage pipeline in Beit Hanoun has broken and is flooding the area.

And so the catalogue of destruction and suffering goes on. Israel restricts supplies of food, fuel and electricity and hampers development, heaping privation on privation, pain on pain. Desperate youths cobble together homemade projectiles and fire them at nearby Israeli towns, Hamas leaders posture and pour forth a delusional rhetoric of revenge and reprisal.

A delusional rhetoric. Even with their full firepower unleashed, Hamas have managed to kill just four Israelis in the last week, adding to the total of 23 killed by rockets or mortars in the last 7 years. Tragic deaths to be sure, but set against the total carnage in Gaza at this time (over 500 dead in the last few days and rising), the suffering of the economic siege, the general festering misery of life in Gaza? Well, what are we to conclude?

Perhaps Israel’s leaders would do well to remember that terrorism has not only a physical but also a psychological infrastructure, an infrastructure that they are building even as they destroy tunnels and rocket launching platforms; that desperate people will resort to desperate measures, that suffering breeds hatred and hatred breeds revenge.

Israel does indeed have the capacity to change the status quo in Gaza, by stopping this endless abuse of the human rights and human dignity of her people. Now, while the eyes of the world are on Gaza, it is time to demand that end.

Rebuild Eco Mosque in Wadi El Naam tomorrow

2009-01-01T13:36:00.003+02:00

On Christmas Day, Israeli authorities bulldozed a straw-bale and mud
built eco-mosque in the unrecognized Bedouin village of Wadi El Naam,
close to Beer Sheva.

The mosque was built by the community, with help from Jewish-Israeli
friends and activists from all over the world, as a symbol of hope for
the Bedouin communities whose land rights are not recognized by the
Israeli government, and who suffer constant harassment, home
demolitions and destruction of their crops.

The State destroyed it, because they hold all Bedouin settlements
outside of government-recognized townships (where Bedouin have no
possibility to live in the way that is traditional to their culture)
to be illegal. Thus Bedouin are considered squatters and trespassers
on their own land.

Help rebuild the mosque, and rebuild hope in the Bedouin community.

Message from Bustan and the Regional Council for Unrecognized Villages

To all our friends and colleagues,
As the Straw-Bale mosque in Wadi al-Naam was destroyed this past Thursday, we have organized a community event at the site tomorrow, Friday, January 2nd. Thank you to everyone for your support during this time of destruction. Although we are devastated by the destruction of the Eco-Mosque in Wadi al-Naam, we know that now is not the time to sit down and do nothing. Instead, we must join together to rebuild.

Please join us this Friday, January 2, at 11:30 am at the site of the Wadi Na'am mosque, for a community prayer and ceremony to commemorate the destruction, all the home demolitions in the unrecognized villages, and to re-dedicate the mosque, which is being rebuilt!

You can arrive to the Mosque in several ways:
1) if you are arriving by car, call Mahmoud for directions 057-466-2331;
2) a sherut from Tzomet Sarah near Segev Shalom will take you all the way to the mosque
3) by Metropoline buses #44, 45, 58 or 60 from the Central Bus Station in Beer Sheva, ask the driver to get off at "Military Base 302". From there, transportation can be arranged; 4) if there is a group arriving from Beersheva, we can organize transportation directly from there.

For that reason, it is essential to RSVP if you are coming. Please email greencenter@bustan.org or call 050-371-1802 or (RCUV details)

We need donations!

Checks can be sent either to Bustan: 18/3 Basel St, Schunat Alef, Beer Sheva Israel

Or to the RCUV: P.O.Box 10002, Beer Sheva, 84105, to "El Auna Fund", or via paypal to yallylivnat@gmail.com

Please indicate that it is for re-building the mosque, and your name and contact info, so we can thank you and send a receipt.

While most of the work tomorrow, Friday will be done by professional builders, on Saturday we are expecting community work to finish off the building. Please join us! For details, please call Mahmoud at 057-466-2331 (Arabic or Hebrew), or Rebecca: 052 406 6969

Tree Planting/ Permaculture Workshop @ Al Wallaja, January 3rd

2008-12-31T16:49:00.002+02:00

On the 3rd of January there will be a workday/ permaculture workshop in the village of Al Wallaja, close to Beit Jala. The day will start at 10am, working through until the sun goes down.

Abed is a friend of ours whose land is threatened with confiscation by Israeli Authorities, lying as it does close to Gilo settlement, in a zone that is slated for settlement expansion.

Together with Israeli and Palestinian friends, Abed has been resisting eviction from his land, moving into a cave on site, and in spite, or perhaps because of, the lack of water, electricity and sewage infrastructure, he has been building a model for sustainable living and food production, using traditional Palestinian farming and building techniques.

This Saturday we will be joined by Palestinians, Israelis and Internationals, working together to resist colonization and build towards a more positive future for land and people.

We will be sending a delegation, leaving from Bustan Qaraaqa at 9.30am. If you would like to join, call us on 02 2748994 or call Ayala (the organizer) directly on 0546223652 for directions. Bring some food to share for lunch if you can.

Hope to see you there,

love

the Bustan Qaraaqa team
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Gaza Crisis Appeal - How You Can Help

2008-12-31T16:48:00.001+02:00

Donate to UNRWA Special Gaza Appeal تبرعوا لنداء الاستغاثة الخاص بغزة

1. Arab Bank PLC
UNRWA USD Current account100191-4-510
SWIFT Code: ARABPS22600
El-Rimal Branch Omar El-Mukhtar St, Gaza

2. HSBC Bank
UNRWA USD Current account 002/057511-185
Swift Code: BBMEJOAX
Amman, Jordan

What can you do? Please read bellow:

So far hundreds of civilians have been killed in Gaza. Five sisters in one family, four other children in another home, two children on a cart drawn by a donkey. Universities, colleges, police stations, roads, apartment buildings were all targeted. The UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in the Occupied Palestinian areas issued a statement that "The Israeli airstrikes on the Gaza Strip represent s evere and massive violations of international humanitarian law as defined in the Geneva Conventions, both in regard to the obligations of an Occupying Power and in the requirements of the laws of war."

Twenty things to do to bring peace with justice:

1) First get the facts and then disseminate them. Here are some basic background information
http://www.btselem.org/english/Gaza_Strip
http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article4933.shtml
http://www.mepeace.org/forum/topics/the-true-story-behind-this-war The true story behind this war
http://www.unitedforpeace.org/downloads/If%20Gaza%20falls.pdf If Gaza Falls
http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article10055.shtml Gaza massacres must spur us to action

2) Contact local media. Write letters to editors (usually 100-150 words) and longer op-eds (usually 600-800 words) for local newspapers. But also write to news departments in both print, audio, and visual media about their coverage. In the US http://www.congress.org/congressorg/dbq/media/ You can find media listings in your country using search engines like google

3) Organize and join demonstrations in front of Israeli and Egyptian embassies or when not doable in front of your parliament, office of elected officials, and any other visible place (and do media work for it).

4) Hold a teach-in, seminar, public dialogue, documentary film viewing etc. this is straightforward: you need to decide venue, nature, if any speakers, and do some publicity (the internet helps).

5) Pass out flyers with facts and figures about Palestine and Gaza in your community (make sure also to mention its relevance to the audience: e.g, US taxpayers paying for the carnage, increase in world instability and economic uncertainty)

6) Put a Palestinian flag at your window.

7) Wear a Palestinian head scarf (Koufiya)

8) Wear Black arm bands (this helps start conversations with people)

9) Send direct aid to Gaza through the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA). http://www.un.org/unrwa/

10) Initiate boycotts, divestments and sanctions at all levels and including asking leaders to expel the Israeli ambassadors (an ambassador of an apartheid and rogue state). See Palestinian call http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article10056.shtml

11) Work towards bringing Israeli leaders before war crime courts (actions along those lines in courts have stopped Israeli leaders from traveling abroad to some countries like Brigtai9n where they may face charges)

12) Calling upon all Israelis to demonstrate in front of their war ministry and to more directly challenge their government

13) Do outreach: to neighbors and friends directly. Via Internet to a lot of others (you can join and post information to various listservs/groups).

14) Start your own activist group or join other local groups (simple search in your city with the word Palestine could identify candidate groups that have previously worked on issues of Palestine). Many have also been successful in at bringing coalitions from different constituencies in their local areas to work together (human rights group, social and civil activists, religious activists, etc).

15) Develop a campaign of sit-ins at government offices or other places where decision makers aggregate

16) Do a group fast for peace one day and hold it in a public place

17) Visit Palestine

18) Support human rights and other groups working on the ground in Palestine

19) Make large signs and display them at street corners and where ever people congregate.

20) Contact local churches, mosques and other houses of worship and ask them to take a moral stand.

New Year Newsletter

2008-12-31T15:52:00.002+02:00

Bustan Qaraaqa, Beit Sahour, December 31st 2008

Dear friends,

As Eid al-Adha and Christmas have come to Bethlehem and the year is turning, it seems an appropriate moment to send a message from our farm in the Shepherds Fields, updating you on our activities over the last few months and our plans for 2009. We feel it is also important at this juncture to mention the situation in Gaza, as the missiles keep falling and the death toll rises daily, and to express our deep sorrow at such terrible events and our hope for a swift ceasefire. You can sign a petition calling for an immediate ceasefire by clicking the following link:

http://www.avaaz.org/en/gaza_time_for_peace/97.php?cl_tf_sign=1

Let us hope that from such an inauspicious start, 2009 will be a year of peace-building and positive change in the region. We will certainly be approaching it with a renewed determination to help create a better future from the grassroots up, and to work for ecological sustainability, environmental justice and protection of human rights.

It is over 3 months since our last newsletter, and we have passed a turbulent but productive autumn, with thrills and spills coming thick and fast. In fact, so much has happened that it is difficult to know where to start: to recount the curious events of the olive harvest, the departure of our much beloved Bustan Qaraaqa co-founder; Nick, the arrival of Roman, the sojourn of the Dancing Dishwasher, Alice’s adventures in the United Kingdom, not to mention all the work that has been done with the help of many volunteers to build towards sustainable living and food production both at this site and at others.

Perhaps it is best to start, as they say, at the beginning, or around the time of our last correspondence. The team wilted in the late August heat, doggedly digging swale after swale as the Middle Eastern sun beat down relentlessly out of an azure and cloudless sky. As September progressed, the heat began to dissipate somewhat and the number of guests and volunteers declined. We were able to make a few forays away from the site, going on seed collection missions to Kibbutz Lotan in the far south of Israel, to Jerusalem Botanic Garden, to the Judean desert to the east of Bethlehem and north to the Golan heights, besides tree planting in Bedouin communities in the Negev Desert alongside our partner organization; Bustan. We also received glad news in the form of our first grant, courtesy of the Allan and Nesta Ferguson foundation, enough money to secure the rent on the site until June 2009, pay for materials for a tree nursery and begin work on sealing the rainwater cistern, as well as supporting the living expenses of our long-suffering project founders and volunteers.

As September turned to October the first rains fell and the season of olive harvesting began. We were delighted to be approached during this time by a group of North American and European activists called the Olive Tree Circus, who needed a base from which to conduct their activities supporting Palestinian farmers in accessing their trees and land and restoring some of the joy to this important cultural event. The olive harvest 2008 turned out to be one of the most problematic years experienced by Palestinian farmers, with more attacks by Israeli military and settlers occurring during the first 2 weeks than in 2007 altogether according to UN reports. A wave of nationalistic fervour appeared to sweep through the settler movement, coinciding with the Jewish holidays of Yom Kippur and Sukkouth. Arab-Jewish clashes and riots in the northern city of Akko (Acre) added fuel to the fire, and Beit Sahour was not left out of the fall out.

A group of settlers who had been active all summer, have been attempting to seize a piece of land in Beit Sahour known as Ush Ghrab (the Crow’s Nest) less than 1 km from Bustan Qaraaqa and stepping up their activities (watch a video about Ush Ghrab). The site used to be an Israeli military base, but was evacuated and handed back to Palestinian control in 2006. Since then it has been redeveloped by Beit Sahour municipality to create a community space for picnics and sport, a childrens’ playground, and the headquarters of youth development organization and a Bustan Qaraaqa partner, Paidia. In addition, a plan is underway and funding has been secured to build a childrens’ hospital there. However, Israeli settlers who oppose Palestinian control of the area have been organizing activities there in order to reassert Israeli ownership of the area (read settler organization blog).

On the Jewish holiday of Sukkouth, hundreds of Israeli settlers and activists arrived at the site. Local Palestinians and international NGO workers, including staff of Bustan Qaraaqa and Paidia, had decided to be present in the area, in order to demonstrate the fact that it is already in use by the local community, and is a valued space. The action was designed to be non-confrontational in nature, comprising a nature walk and environmental surveying activities in the nearby valley. Unfortunately, the delegation was attacked by Israeli border police and military and 6 people were seized, amongst them Bustan Qaraaqa team member, Nick Marcroft (read article).

While the other 5 were released after a few hours, Nick was detained in Israeli jail for several days before his anxious colleagues were able to obtain bail conditions. During this time, the Olive Tree Circus arrived at the farm to begin their programme, filling the house with accordion music, jugglers, stilt-walkers and good cheer. The trials of the Qaraaqa team were not yet over, as on the day of Nick’s release and the first day of the olive harvest at the farm, Alice fell from the one branch of the one olive tree on the site overhanging the newly dug cistern, and plummeted 6 metres to the ground, landing badly and ending up being stretchered off in a Red Crescent ambulance and taken to Bethlehem hospital. Fortunately no bones were broken and she was discharged on the same day, dazed and staggering, but fundamentally unharmed. The next morning Nick was re-arrested by Israeli police due to not possessing a valid visa, but was later released on condition that he obtain one before November 10th.

Throughout this whole ordeal, the members of the Olive Tree Circus proved to be wondrously supportive and tolerant, fielding phone-calls, helping to leaver Alice out of the cistern, carrying out their own activities and creating music and magic in the midst of the carnage, both at the farm and across the West Bank as they travelled to support Palestinian farmers (watch a video about the Olive Tree Circus). In addition, a wide array of volunteers from all over the world came to help the team bring in the olive harvest – over 150 kilograms from 60 trees – and to them we offer our undying gratitude, for without them the crop would have soured ungathered on the trees.

November saw the departure of the circus, and also of Alice, who left to go on a speaking tour of the UK, visiting a wide array of groups across the country; from Palestine solidarity groups to students at agricultural colleges and permaculture groups. Soon afterwards, to our lasting regret, Nick was deported, having not been granted a visa by Israeli authorities to work in the West Bank, despite having filed a request with Palestinian authorities which had been accepted.

This left the team extremely diminished, with a lone and faithful Tom at the helm of the project, and a mountain of work to get done. But just as things were looking desperate, reinforcements arrived in the form of Roman Gawel, an experienced conservation worker and qualified biologist who will volunteer long-term with the project, and Yohan Yohanson, the Dancing Dishwasher, an Olive Tree Circus survivor and resident of Auroville sustainable community in India, who span chaotically into the Qaraaqa orbit with revolutionary zeal and lent us his accumulated wisdom and joyous energy for a spell. As well as this, Steve and Rania Al Qass Collings, co-founders of the project who had been absent on parental leave, were able to rejoin the team, and so work not only continued through November but even gained momentum.

With the help of volunteers Brittany Baltimore, Erin Abshire, Neasa McNulty and Maggie Coulter, a tree nursery was constructed, winter vegetable beds were prepared, the swales were finished, additional water storage was built, a composting scheme was set in motion at the nearby SOS childrens’ village, workshops on non-violent communication and creative reuse of waste materials were carried out and field visits to local farmers were made.

In December Alice returned after a successful speaking tour, and work continued to gather pace as Bustan Qaraaqa hosted volunteer groups from Birzeit University and the International Palestinian Youth League. Huge amounts of work were accomplished: the tree nursery was finished, winter beds were prepared, pathways were built around the site, a water catchment was built above the cistern and rocks were collected for building projects. As well as all this, the team attended volunteer days in Al Wallaja (with the All Nations Cafe) and Nahalin (at the Tent of Nations), and Alice and Tom went south to give a tree planting workshop in the Bedouin village of Um Batin, near Beer Sheva, in cooperation with Bustan.

And then Christmas was upon us, and the farm turned into a huge campsite and bunk house, as all the room at the inn was rapidly filled and guests were housed in caves and under tables. We had over 30 people staying on Christmas Eve, and a joyous celebration with a barbeque, a bonfire, music and dancing. As the evening progressed we were blessed with rain, which kept falling all night, a much needed christmas present for land and people. Sadly it was not long before bad news began to dispel the festive cheer. On Christmas day, Israeli authorities demolished a straw-bale and mud eco-mosque in the unrecognized Bedouin village of Wadi El Naam (read full story), and we learned that our friend Abed in nearby Al Wallaja had received a demolition order for his small cave where he stays on his land. And then the bombs started falling on Gaza.

And so now we hang between the old year and the new, between hope and despair, watching and waiting to see how events will unfold in this troubled land. Elections are imminent in both Israel and Palestine, the political landscape if shifting and ominous clouds gather on the horizon. Of one thing we are certain, however: the environmental crisis that threatens the well-being of all the people in the region will not go away as the soil erodes and is destroyed by pollution and overgrazing, the water resources are contaminated with untreated sewage and industrial effluents and the threat of drought hangs heavy through this dry winter. So we have great plans for 2009 and a lot of work to do, both on this site and others as we continue our journey towards full sustainability, to work with our partners to increase environmental awareness and to develop and implement strategies for sustainable living that have real relevance to peoples’ lives.

Upcoming events:
In January 2009 we look forward to tree planting workshops in Um Batin and Al Wallaja. In February 2009 we will hold a 2 week Spring Action Camp (from February 17th to March 1st), when we will be working at Bustan Qaraaqa and with local farmers, learning about the Palestinian environmental situation, hiking in the Judean Desert and visiting the cities of the region. We invite people of all ages and backgrounds to participate – please email info@eag-palestine.org for further information and see the attached poster and flyer.

Support our work:
As ever, we are greatly in the debt of our volunteers, and our network of grassroots fundraisers and private contributors for the continuation of our work. We welcome volunteers to come to Palestine and work with us for whatever length of time you can spare. In addition, we are particularly in need of funding at the moment to help finish the rainwater cistern that will form the foundation of our work growing native trees and food crops. If you would like to fundraise for us, please be in contact for a support pack. If you would like to make a donation, cheques payable to Bustan Qaraaqa can be sent to The Old School, Lydfords Lane, Gillingham, Dorset, SP8 4NJ. Or, if you would like to make a monthly contribution, please email us at info@eag-palestine.org and we will send you our bank details. All help is deeply appreciated!

Special thanks:
We owe great debts of gratitude to so many people that it is impossible to list every name here, but in particular we would like to thank the Allan and Nesta Ferguson Charitable Foundation, the Bangor and Anglesey Peace and Justice group, the Permaculture Association, Ger Morgan, Mazen Qumsieh, the Olive Tree Circus, the International Palestinian Youth League, Brittany Baltimore, Erin Abshire, Neasa McNulty, Maggie Coulter, Philip and Mary Gray, Jan Bang, Alon Shepon, George Rishmawi, Adnan Atiyeh, Baha Hilo, Rebecca Vilkomerson, Ra’ed Al Mickawi, Eric Winter, Yohan Yohanson, Suzi High, Ed Hill, Michael Whiting, James Cox, Hanni Schoelerman, Yamin El Abed, Jared Malsin and Cosimo Caridi for all the many things you have done for us.

And so it remains only to wish you all joy and light for the New Year, and to hope to see you here in Bethlehem. Merry may we meet!

In peace and love,

Alice, Tom, Nick, Steve, Rania and Roman

the Bustan Qaraaqa team

Olive Picking @ Bustan Qaraaqa this weekend

2008-10-23T15:56:00.002+02:00

This weekend - Friday October 24th to Sunday October 26th, we will be harvesting our olives at Bustan Qaraaqa. Anyone in the area is warmly invited to join us, learn more about the project, and meet the Bustan Qaraaqa team and the Imaginaction Olive Tree Circus group.

If you can make it, please give us a call on 02 2748994 and we will give you directions of how to find us.

Hope to see you there,

All the best from the Tortoise Garden,

Alice, Nick, Tom and Steve

The Bustan Qaraaqa team.

Israeli Settlers and Soldiers attack Palestinians harvesting olives

2008-10-22T11:55:00.003+02:00

Olive Tree Campaign (www.ej-ymca.org)

Keep Hope Alive

Newsletter

October 20, 2008

Increasing violence during Olive Harvest 2008
Israeli soldiers & settlers attacks on farmers

A report from the UN declares that there has been as many attacks on farmers so far this year, as in 2007 all together. Even Israeli politicians have declared that the situation is getting out of control. Prior to the olive harvest season, Israeli and Palestinian officials agreed that the Israeli defense force would prevent the settlers from assaulting farmers during their olive harvest. Instead, the Israeli soldiers accompanied settlers in harassing farmers in several occasions during the last two weeks. Farmers are being forced to start their harvesting before the actual season has started, or will have to leave their trees half-full of olives. According to the Israeli High Court ruling of 2006, it is a violation of the law for soldiers to obstruct farmers from harvesting.

- http://www.maannews.net/en/index.php?opr=ShowDetails&ID=32281
- http://english.pnn.ps/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=3735&Itemid=1

*

Ramallah Area

Ni'lin 10.10.08 - One hundred Israeli and international peace activists accompanied farmers to the olive harvest. The soldiers used teargas and sound bombs towards the farmers and peace activists. The Israeli soldiers injured ten people, including two children.

http://www.maannews.net/en/index.php?opr=ShowDetails&ID=32444
http://www.palsolidarity.org/main/2008/10/12/israeli-forces-attack-nilin-olive-harvest

Bil'in 10.10.08 – Farmers and international peace activists were obstructed to reach the olive groves behind the wall. Israeli soldiers shot at them with rubber bullets, gas and concussion grenades.

http://www.maannews.net/en/index.php?opr=ShowDetails&ID=32454
http://www.palsolidarity.org/main/2008/10/12/dozens-of-volunteers-injured-while-picking-olives-in-bilin

Ni'lin 3.10.08 – Israeli and international peace activists clashed with settlers as they accompanied farmers to their olive groves on the other side of the wall.

http://www.maannews.net/en/index.php?opr=ShowDetails&ID=32293

*

Nablus Area

Azmut 18.10.08 – Israeli settlers from the settlement Alon Moreh attacked a Palestinian farmer by throwing stones at him. The farmer was sent to the hospital for treatment.

http://www.maannews.net/en/index.php?opr=ShowDetails&ID=32630

Nablus area 16.10.08 – Sheep released on olive field.

Israeli settlers from the settlement Itamar released a flock of sheep into an olive grove. Several olive and fig trees was injured by the animals.

http://www.maannews.net/en/index.php?opr=ShowDetails&ID=32577

Gith 13.10.08 – Israeli settlers cut down some 20 olive trees belonging to Palestinian farmers.

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3608478,00.html

Salim 12.10.08 – Soldiers prevented farmers from accessing their land. The farmers are cut from their lands by the bypass road linking the two settlements of Itamar and Elon Moreh..

http://english.pnn.ps/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=3742&Itemid=1

Qrayut 12.10.08 - Settlers preventing farmers to access their land. Settlers blocked the path of farmers wanting to start their olive harvesting.

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3608478,00.html

Hawwara/Burin 11.10.08 – Palestinian farmers were attacked by settlers from Yithzar settlement. The settlers came bearing machine guns and harassed the farmers by throwing stones at them, and then cut down five olive trees. Soldiers then came to the area, only to order the farmers to leave their land. The Israeli soldiers claimed the farmers did not have the proper permission to enter their olive groves.

http://www.maannews.net/en/index.php?opr=ShowDetails&ID=32470
http://www.palsolidarity.org/main/2008/10/11/two-palestinian-farmers-injured-as-yitzhar-settlers-attack-olive-harvest-near-huwwara-nablus

Nablus area 10.10.08 - Israeli settlers injure six Palestinians as they are harvesting olives. The settlers threw stones and beat the farmers. Among the victims were two children.

http://www.maannews.net/en/index.php?opr=ShowDetails&ID=32455

Tell 06.10.08 - Israeli soldiers interrupted farmers while harvesting olives. The farmers had been picking olives for a couple of hours when soldiers came and said they had to leave because the area was apparently a “closed military zone”.
http://www.palsolidarity.org/main/2008/10/06/farmers-from-salim-village-discover-theft-and-damage-to-their-olive-groves

Salim 06.10.08 – Farmers discover theft and damage to their olive trees. The village had been granted protection from the Israeli District Co-ordination Office for three days during the olive harvest season.
http://www.palsolidarity.org/main/2008/10/06/farmers-from-salim-village-discover-theft-and-damage-to-their-olive-groves

*

Hebron

18.10.8 – Journalist injured by settlers while helping family harvest olives. Another two peace activist was injured in the attack.

http://www.maannews.net/en/index.php?opr=ShowDetails&ID=32623

3.10.08 – Settlers clash with Rabbis for Human Rights as they protect farmers while harvesting olives. In the aftermath, the peace activists were accused to have attacked the settlers.

http://www.maannews.net/en/index.php?opr=ShowDetails&ID=32307

http://www.maannews.net/en/index.php?opr=ShowDetails&ID=32293

*

Tulkarem Area

Al Ras 04.10.08 - Settlers supported by Israeli soldiers forced a family by gunpoint to leave their tractor and carry on by foot, leaving most of their equipment behind in order to reach their lands. Israeli authorities have during the last couple of weeks set fire to large areas of agricultural land in the area.

http://www.maannews.net/en/index.php?opr=ShowDetails&ID=32307

http://www.imemc.org/article/57224

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Qalqilya

Kafr Qaddum 20.10.08 – More than one hundred Israeli settlers attacked and beat up farmers and international volunteers as they were harvesting olives at Jabal Odala. Several people was injured in the attack.

http://www.maannews.net/en/index.php?opr=ShowDetails&ID=32660

Qalqilya 16.10.08 – The olive groves of a Palestinian farmer in the village of Kafr Qaddum were set fire to by Israeli settlers from the Quedumin.

http://www.maannews.net/en/index.php?opr=ShowDetails&ID=32573

Kafr al-Labad and Shufa 16.10.08 – Israeli soldiers impose road block: A bulldozer was set up on an agricultural road thereby preventing farmers to bring their olive harvest to the olive press.

http://www.maannews.net/en/index.php?opr=ShowDetails&ID=32575

Kafr Qaddum 05.10.08 – Farmers preparing to harvest olives was attacked by a group of Israeli soldiers and settlers. The soldiers claimed the land belonged to the settlement of Qedumim.

http://www.maannews.net/en/index.php?opr=ShowDetails&ID=32339

*

Jenin area

Jenin 18.10.08 – A group of settlers from the illegal settlement Mevo Dotan attacked a Palestinian family during their olive harvest. The settlers also stole the olives harvested by the family. One of the farmers was injured due to the attacks.

http://www.maannews.net/en/index.php?opr=ShowDetails&ID=32646

The Israeli settlers regularly harass the surrounding villagers by burning their lands, shooting at Palestinians, stealing their farming equipment, and attacking houses. The farmers has in total lost more than fifty percent of their olive groves.

*

Further readings

- http://english.pnn.ps/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=3735&Itemid=1
- http://www.palsolidarity.org/main/2008/10/01/settlers-engaged-in-price-tag-campaign/
- http://www.imemc.org/article/57224
- http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=71419§ionid=351020202
- http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1222017576844&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
- http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1222017576865&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull

Abu Zakariya - a Bethlehem Farmer

2008-10-14T12:55:00.006+02:00

Abu Zakariya is from Al Khader, a formerly and predominantly agricultural area at the centre of Bethlehem district that stands to lose the vast majority of its farmland if construction of the separation wall continues unheeded. Since the construction of the wall on the hill tops behind the residential part of the town, Abu Zakiriya’s journey to the family farmland has been at least doubled. The 2km detour he makes with his donkey takes him out and around the town, through an Israeli military ‘flying checkpoint’ and then down the hard shoulder of a busy dual carriageway – the Jerusalem, Hebron route 60 – a now infamous settler Bethlehem bypass road used by settlers to access not just Heron but a number of large Israeli West Bank settlements. There are no facilities or facilitations for farmers on this road. After walking down the dangerous hard shoulder for more than 1km farmers must then cross the busy dual carriage way unaided.

Abu Zakariya’s family land is a relatively large, 50 dunums (5 hectares), consisting predominantly of ecologically important ‘marquis’ scrub and trees including oak, blackthorn, pistachio, carob, as well as a number of cultivated fruit varieties. For most part however, due to older age and the little help Abu Zakariya receives, he is only able to farm perhaps just one dunum of this land, upon which he has a number of new fruit trees and grape vines, as well as older olive trees. Certainly the most significant factor contributing to the demise of Palestinian farmland in general is the issue of access. While Israel may negate claims that it is stopping Palestinian farmers from using their land, especially in areas that Israel considers of strategic importance, it is certainly hindering farmers to such an extent that to farm this land viably is becoming increasingly difficult as well as far from an enjoyable experience. When the hard work that goes into this land gives very little return it is easy to understand how family land is slowly being given up in favour of more profitable business. The younger generations are of course in need of higher wages, especially in consideration of the cost to support the large families that Muslims tend to have in this region. If Palestinians want to hold onto this land, however, huge steps must be taken to help farmers like Abu Zakariya. When land such as his sits untended for more than three years Israel has given itself the power to confiscate it as ‘state land’, declare it militarily closed, and ultimately at a later date ‘develop’ upon it. If money could be raised to repair farm tracks and allow ease of access for larger trucks at harvest time, to transport farmers themselves to their land, to build rainwater storage cisterns, this land can be saved and a viable healthy living made from it.

If anybody is interested in working as a volunteer with farmers such as Abu Zakariya, please contact us.

Abu Juda, a Bethlehem Farmer

2008-10-04T23:06:00.001+03:00

Abu Juda is a 61 year old farmer. His land, whilst inside Bethlehem Governorate, has long been inside an Israeli West Bank settlement, but only recently separated from Bethlehem by Israel's separation "fence". Since the completion of that section of the wall, Abu Juda has to make an 8km detour walk, with his donkey, to reach his land. At a military checkpoint in the wall Abu Juda must show his ID and permit to farm his own land, land that has been in his familiy for generations.

Abu Akrum, a Bethlehem Farmer

2008-10-04T22:50:00.006+03:00

Abu Akrum lives in Bethlehem's Deheisha refugee camp. His family was displaced from their village near the "green line" as a result of Israeli violence during the 1948 Arab-Israeli war.

Of all the people I have met in Palestine Abu Akrum is one of the most inspiring. He turned an area of cactus overrun land, within the refugee camp, into a thriving jungle of a garden that provides many of his family's vegetable needs.

10 years ago Abu Akrum bought a 23,000 square metre area of farm land in an area of bethlehem district called Al Khader. He now makes a small living as a farmer of fruit, vegetables, and honey. This living is, however, far from easy. The land that Abu Akrum farms is now on the wrong side of Israel's separation wall, and upon the wall's completion there is no guaruntee that Abu Akrum will be able to use this land as he does now. The dirt track that connects Abu Akrum's land to the main Jerusalem-Hebron road is in a state of such disrepair that to farm this vast area of farmland in a way that is economically viable is next to impossible.

Recently Abu Akrum's farmland summer house was broken into and set alight, ruining over 1km of irrigation piping as well as tools. With a small Israeli outpost settlement just over the hill above his land, Abu Akrum suspects the settlers. There are many other reports of abuse of Palestinian farmers by Israeli settlers in this particular area, including claims of farmers being shot at.

In the background of the above picture is the Israeli settlement of Betar illit, another colony illegal under international law but now considered by israel as part of the defacto state. Betar illit is on the hill tops above the village of Wadi Fukin, another formerly highly productive area within the west bank. Now, however, due to israel's economic constriction of palestinian farmers Wadi Fukin is slowly becoming a village operating at little more than self-sufficiency.

Bustan Qaraaqa to host Imaginaction Group

2008-10-02T11:19:00.002+03:00

Bustan Qaraaqa staff are excited to be hosting the Olive Tree Circus from Imaginaction, a travelling theatre arts company, for the second half of October. Imaginaction, a north-American group, are joining us in Palestine for the Olive Harvest, and with us will be supporting the activities of the Olive Tree Campaign of the East Jerusalem YMCA, helping Palestinian farmers to harvest olives in areas that are threatened with confiscation or are difficult to access.

We are also working together to create an exciting program of workshops and performances throughout the West Bank - watch this space for updates

ARIJ report on the activities of Israeli settlers and occupation forces in the Bethlehem area during July 2008

2008-10-02T11:08:00.007+03:00

Bethlehem
• The Israeli Occupation Army removed Al Container checkpoint northeast
of Bethlehem city. Maan News (Jul 2, 2008).

• The IOF searched a house belonging to the family of Mahmoud Hassan Al
Wardian in Bethlehem city. PCHRGAZA (Jul 3, 2008).

• The IOF moved into Al Duhaisha refugee camp to the south of Bethlehem
city raided and searched a house belonging to the family of Ziad Rahhal.
PCHRGAZA (Jul 3, 2008).

• The Israeli Occupation Forces moved into Al Shawawra village to the east
of Bethlehem city raided and searched a house belonging to the family of
‘Ali Mohammed Hamdan. PCHRGAZA (Jul 3, 2008).

• The Israeli Occupation troops staged into Al Khadr town south of
Bethlehem city and broke into the houses of Muhammad Hussein Gharib
and his sons. Wafa (Jul 7, 2008).

• The IOF staged into Al Khadr town south of Bethlehem city and broke into
the house of Ramzi Salah the mayor of the town. Wafa (Jul 10, 2008).

• Some 60 Israeli settlers, including a Knesset Member and local rabbis
invaded Osh Ghrab camp in Beit Sahour city. IMEMC & IsraelNN (Jul 11,
2008).

• The IOF invaded Al Khadr town south of Bethlehem city and broke into
Sbeih stores, causing extensive loses to the properties. The IOF also raided
and searched a house belonging to the family of Nadeem Mahmoud
‘Eissa. PCHRGAZA & Wafa (Jul 12, 2008).

• Israeli Occupation troops raided an apartment in the old section of Al
Khadr town west of Bethlehem city, shouting at the inhabitants and
claiming that a Molotov cocktail had been thrown at an Israeli vehicle in
the area. Meanwhile Israeli Occupation forces stormed Wadi Em ʹAli
neighborhood of Bethlehem and arrested people. Separately, undercover
Israeli forces infiltrated ‘Aida refugee camp in Bethlehem. The Israeli
military vehicles infiltrated ‘Aida refugee camp north of Bethlehem city
and surrounded the houses of Ayman Al‐ʹAmareen and Hammuda Srur
and arrested them after ransacking both houses. Maannews (July 13, 2008).

• The Israeli Occupation Forces closed Al Container checkpoint east of
Bethlehem Governorate and carried out an intensive inspection campaign
which obstructed the Pedestrian and vehicular movements for hours.
Wafa (July 13, 2008).

• More than 100 Israeli settlers invaded Osha Ghrab camp in Beit Sahour
city and tried to construct tents in the area in an attempt to erect new
outpost. Wafa (Jul 14, 2008).

• The Israeli Occupation Forces staged into Nahhalin village west of
Bethlehem city and carried out house to house search campaign after
forcing dwellers to evacuate their houses under the threat of weapons.
Wafa (Jul 14, 2008).

• The IOF moved into Bethlehem city and raided and searched a house
belonging to the family of ‘Abed ‘Aziz al‐Hraimi. PCHRGAZA (July 15,
2008).

• The IOF moved into Beit Ta’mar village, east of Bethlehem, raided and
searched a house belonging to the family of Hmaid Mohammed Souman.
PCHRGAZA (July 15, 2008).

• The Israeli Occupation Army invaded Beit Fajjar town south of Bethlehem
city, closed all its main entrances with earth mounds and cement blocks
and took over a four‐ storey residential building owned by Muhammad
Sham’on, turning it into military post after forcing all dwellers to evacuate
it. PNN & Quds (Jul 15, 2008).

• The Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert rejected a plan to build 800 new
housing units in Bittar ‘Illit settlement but he agreed on issuing bids to
build 286 units in the settlement. Haaretz (Jul 16, 2008).

• The Israeli Occupation Petrol set up a temporary checkpoint at the
entrance of Al Shawawreh village east of Bethlehem city. Israeli Soldiers
stopped and searched vehicles, detained passengers after confiscating
their personal ID cards which hampered their arrival to their destination.
Wafa (July 23, 2008).

• Israeli Occupation forces accompanied by bulldozers and trucks to
transport machinery and equipment staged into the industrial zone east of
Beit Fajjar city and started razing the front yards of some factories and
confiscated more than 20 machinery, including bulldozers and machinery
and equipment for digging and cutting stone; initial losses are estimated at
millions of dollars as the occupation forces destroyed a number of stone
cut machines, each of which costs about a quarter of a million dollars.
Among Factoriesʹ owners, the following were known: Khalil Naʹim
thawabteh, Asʹad Mazen Jaradat, Muhammad Hassan Thawabteh, Nabeeh
Hasan Diriyah, Hatim Ahmed Natsheh. Maannews (July 2008).

• Six Israeli military vehicles invaded the village of Al Manyia south of
Bethlehem city and imposed a closure lasted for a couple of hours. Israeli
troops searched and ransacked several houses forcing civilians out of their
homes under the threat of weapon. The troops kidnapped Nawaf Abu
Nur, 44, after damaging his residence. IMEMC (July 24, 2008).

• Twenty sheep died after Israeli settlers sprayed the fields located in close
parameters of Tequʹ settlements south of Bethlehem city with poisonous
substances in the lands. Sheep belong to Mahmoud Hussein ʹAli Sabbah.
Wafa (July 28, 2008).

• The Israeli Occupation Forces stormed the house of Muhammad Saʹade al
muhseri composed of three floors in Al Khader old city west of Bethlehem
city alongside Bypass Road 60 and carried out an intensive house search
after detaining the families in one room. The house is inhabited by three
families. Maannews (July 30, 2008).

• Around 70 Israeli settlers invaded Osh Ghurab Park east of Beit Sahour
and forced international and local volunteers to stop the painting work
that they were doing in the site. The settlers, started to paint over the
murals, and to kick the painting buckets. The Army arrived at the site but
made no move to stop the settler provocation. It is worth mentioning that
the painting action was organized by a number of organizations in
Bethlehem area, including the Palestinian Centre for Rapprochement
between People, PAIDIA, Alternative Information Center (AIC) and
Decolonizing Architecture in addition to a number of volunteers in
Bethlehem area. IMEMC (July 30, 2008).

• The Israeli Occupation Bulldozers continued expanding Al Container
checkpoint in Abu Dis city on the expanse of Palestinian Lands located in
the vicinity of the Checkpoint in an attempt to transfer it into a crossing
terminal. The checkpoint connects the southern and middle West Bank
Governorates with the northern Governorates. Al Quds (July 31, 2008).

Olive Picking in Al Walaja, October 3rd - October 4th

2008-09-29T15:45:00.002+03:00

A message from our friends in Al Wallaja:

Dear friends,

As the summer sun gives way to autumn winds, the olives are ripening and the time for their harvest is soon to come. Though picking olives seems like a simple enough activity, it has become an increasingly difficult task for Palestinians whose land is under threat by Israel.

As such, on Friday and Saturday, 3-4 October, from 9:00 am until evening (around 17:00), we will be joining two friends, Abed and Abu Abdullah, to help them harvest their olive trees.

Many of you have already been to Wallajeh, have heard Abed's story and have participated in activities that stand with him in friendship and solidarity. For those who haven't, here is a brief background:

located on the southeastern-most hill of Jerusalem, Wallajeh was formally annexed to
the State of Israel in 1967, but its residents, who mostly live today in Daheisha refugee camp, were not given residency status and are therefore not legally allowed to enter their lands. More than a decade ago, Abed left the dismal conditions of the camp to live in a cave in Wallajeh and plant trees on his ancestral lands. Unfortunately, this did not suit the plans of Israeli politicians and real estate developers. Strategically situated between Gilo and Gush Etzion settlements, there are plans pending approval to build a new settlement on the lands of Wallajeh to be called Giv'at Yael. The contractors have been working closely with the municipality and the army to use every measure possible to embitter Abed's life and force him off his land. He, along with his many friends, has stood strong against all their attempts.

**Directions by Car**: *From the train station at Malha, continue to the traffic circle directly behind; turn right toward Ein Yael. Continue on this road until you get a checkpoint, on the right there will be a dirt path. You can park there and go by foot or brave the steep incline by car.**

Directions by Transport: *There will be transportation to Wallajeh leaving Malha at 9:00.*

Please let us know if and when you plan to join us, if you need transportation or if you have extra space in your car! Also, bring lunch, water, and protection against the sun. For any further questions call Sarah on 054 736 8419

With many wishes for a new year that will bring an end to the Occupation.

August Newsletter

2008-09-02T15:39:00.016+03:00

Dear friends,

As the summer heat haze begins to dissipate in the Palestinian Territories and we start to look forward to the autumn planting and the winter rain, we at Bustan Qaraaqa would like to take a moment to fill you in on what we have been up to over the last few months and to let you know more about our plans for the future. We would also like to thank all of our many volunteers, guests, friends and supporters for your ongoing help with the project which has made it possible for us to achieve all that we have done.

The story so far:

Bustan Qaraaqa was founded in February 2008 by Steve, Tom, Alice and Nick, four young British environmentalists who came together with similar ideas about the need for a grassroots environmental movement in the Palestinian Territories. The aim of the project is to create a model permaculture farm with the aim of propagating a grassroots permaculture movement to help address the humanitarian and environmental problems facing the Palestinian people, and to create an international movement calling for environmental justice for Palestinians (learn more about the project).

The four were lucky to find an amazing site with a beautiful old farmhouse, outbuildings, caves and 12 dunums (4 acres) of land in a valley in the ancient town of Beit Sahour (Shepherds’ Fields), close to the city of Bethlehem. After lengthy negotiations with the owners of the site, a five year renewable lease was secured and the process of renovating the house could begin.

In the meantime, the group helped organize a series of environmental workshops with local youth focusing on the problem of waste management, in cooperation with Paidia International Development; and helped organize and attended a week long permaculture course at Marda Permaculture Farm in Salfit governorate (listen to radio broadcast about the course).

In April, work to make the house habitable began and in May, Alice, Nick and Tom were able to move onto the site. By June the guesthouse was open, and the first guests and volunteers began arriving. The first in a series of weekly volunteer events was held on June 15th, with a group coming together to help install a greywater system to filter and reuse water from the showers and sinks in the house for growing food. This event was well attended, and received coverage in the British broadsheet newspaper, the Guardian (read article).

Since June, the project has been going from strength to strength. The site now boasts a greywater recycling system, composting bays, a composting toilet, a series of swales across the valley floor and the beginnings of a huge cistern for rainwater harvesting. The guesthouse has hosted over 55 visitors from countries all over the world including Britain, Ireland, Italy, Germany, Spain, Denmark, Poland, Mauritius, Mexico, the USA, Canada, and New Zealand, as well as Palestine.

Bustan Qaraaqa staff have been active in the community as well, paying field visits to nearby communities, giving lectures and workshops on environmental themes at the nearby Alternative Information Centre (read about our latest workshop) and hosting groups for educational activities at Bustan Qaraaqa itself. The largest of these was a group of 50 young people from the Birzeit International Summer Work Camp, who spent 5 hours at Bustan Qaraaqa learning about permaculture and the Palestinian environment, and surveying and digging rainwater harvesting ditches.

The team also participated in organizing a fact-finding tour to the Negev desert in Israel which was attended by over 50 people from all over the world, aimed at better understanding the water situation in the Bedouin communities, in cooperation with our partner organizations, Bustan and LifeSource (read tour write-up).

Ongoing projects and future plans:

We are currently working on many levels and with many organizations to encourage grassroots environmental activism in the local area and to advocate for environmental justice for Palestinians.

Community Initiatives:

In cooperation with Beit Sahour municipality, we are attempting to organize a community composting scheme in two neighbourhoods in our immediate vicinity, raising awareness of the landfill problem and collecting a valuable organic resource for growing food.

In cooperation with the Phoenix Centre in Dheisha refugee camp, we are hoping to organize a series of workshops and community initiatives to address the most pressing problems currently facing refugees: water shortage, waste management and food security.

Environmental Education:

We will continue our participation in and support for the Paidia IMPACT program, an initiative to foster the desire and ability of young people to make positive contributions in their communities through nurturing principles of leadership, tolerance and environmental awareness.
We will also be holding a series of workshops with the AIC Womens’ Group, looking at household water conservation and pollution prevention.

We hope to attract more groups from every sector of society to attend workshops and training at Bustan Qaraaqa, and to these ends are working to build better networks with the local community.

In addition to these group events, we are hoping to attract a number of undergraduate and postgraduate students to Bustan Qaraaqa as the new academic year starts, offering our resources and expertise to support them in the execution of the research elements of their degrees.

Implementation of the permaculture model and ecosystem regeneration:

The design for the integrated guesthouse and farm along permaculture principles is gradually progressing towards completion and sustainability. The design components will continue to be built and implemented as we have the resources to do so, taking care never to miss the opportunity to use our experiences as educational workshops for interested neighbours and guests. In the coming months the water-harvesting earthworks will be extended across the whole site. The water catchment area of the house and yards will be constructed and cleaned. The winter water storage cisterns will be completed and sealed. A bathroom, laundry, propagation area and workshop will be built with water filtration and reuse and solar energy harvesting systems. A native tree nursery will be established to grow a diverse stock of species to reforest the site and supply land owners interested in replicating agroforestry techniques pioneered at Bustan Qaraaqa. To supply the nursery with wild native stock, seed and germplasm will be collected from the remaining wild trees of the Judean Hills and Jordan Valley. With the first of the winter rains the tree planting can begin coupled with sowing the winter crops and sheet mulching with cardboard and compost.

International Outreach:

Bustan Qaraaqa has attracted many visitors already and has a number of long-term volunteers signed up for the winter who are committed to working with us for several months. As we develop as a project, we will create detailed volunteer programs for Gap Year students and summer volunteers, although we will continue to accept volunteers on an ad hoc basis as well.

In addition, together with the Siraj Center and Bustan, we are developing a program of short (1 week to 10 days) environmental tours of the Palestinian Territories and Israel, aimed at educating international visitors about the environmental dimensions of the political struggles that are taking place in the region, and the work that is being done to counter environmental degradation, cultural erosion and socioeconomic decay.

Upcoming events:

Bustan Qaraaqa team member Alice will be visiting the UK this winter from November 6th until December 8th, and touring the country with a presentation about the environmental crisis in the Palestinian Territories and the politics of people and the environment. If you would like to invite Alice to speak to a group in your area please get in touch – be aware we will need some help with travel expenses!

Special thanks:

We would like to take this opportunity to give particular thanks to some people whose support has been crucial to the project, without whose help we would not be where we are now: Kristel Letschert, Ala Hilu, Jan Bang, Nadi Farraj, Adnan Atiyeh, Simone Awad, Murad Alkhuffash, George Rishmawi, Ricca Edmondson, Faith Rowold, Philip and Mary Gray, Susan Koppelman, Nachy Kanfer, Phil Behan, Nathan Dannison and Laura and Dennis Hampton.

Support Bustan Qaraaqa:

So far Bustan Qaraaqa has been sustained entirely by the dedication of its founders and volunteers, grassroots fundraising, revenue from the guesthouse and the generosity of a few individuals. We are working on securing more stable sources of funding, but until we do, we continue to depend on the support of our friends. If you would like to visit us here in Bethlehem, hold an event for us or donate to the project, please get in touch.

Our next news letter will be coming out in December – for updates on the project until then, please visit our blog: www.greenintifada.blogspot.com, or contact us at info@eag-palestine.org.

We wish you all the best from the Tortoise Garden and hope to see at least some of you in Bethlehem before too long,

Salamat,

Alice, Nick, Steve and Tom

The Bustan Qaraaqa team.

Demokratia

2008-08-19T12:12:00.002+03:00

The other day I was asked if our project was in any way political. How was our project to be seen in the light of promoting democracy? While I would like for simplicity’s sake to declare this project apolitical in terms of party politics, this is not to say that our true sentiments are not those of activism.

To the traditional conservative democrat, the act of farming land, or collecting winter rainwater, designing a waste water recycling system, recycling our household waste may not seem political, or might not appear to behold any sort of power, but it is in these very acts that we can as individuals place ourselves at the heart of the true democratic process.

What is the democratic process at the level of the individual if not the potential to directly affect change within the communities in which we live? What is the democratic process if not the potential to create the communities we dream of living in - free from excessive bureaucracy, - free from the apathy of assuming ourselves powerless in shaping the future.

By democracy, I do not mean the “democratic” economic model so unquestioningly prescribed by western governments, but the democracy that begins with personal empowerment. Only when individuals play an active role in bettering local society and are able to see directly the fruits of their labour, only then will they feel included, empowered and further able to contribute positively to the community in which they live.

Only when individuals can look at their community, their environment, and believe with confidence that they have the ability to change things for the better, and from there set about achieving this transformation, only then should we consider democracy to be working.

If we want to see progressive change, it is up to us, as individuals, to instigate that change. Only then can we be truly happy in the knowledge that our ideas and thoughts can be translated into the communities we want to see.

By choosing to harvest our own water, by choosing to treat and reuse our water, by generating our own electricity, by growing our own food, by choosing to attain sustainable cooperation with our neighbours, in all these things we are making a statement. We are saying that we as individuals have the knowledge to survive, we have true respect for the people around us and the land we share, and we have the ability to make a difference.

When we give ourselves this freedom, we are declaring politics accessible to anyone, not just through the ballot box, but by what we do directly, through our own actions.