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that will enable future cooperative
environmental work for the benefit
of the entire Middle East, but these
programs work towards peace, too.
Because we use the environment
and not peace as our primary
ingredient, we are able to
accomplish much more when it
comes to the peace element.”
Tal also co-founded EcoPeace,
now known as Friends of the Earth
Middle East. In 1998, he was elected
Chair of Life and the Environment,
Israel’s umbrella group for
environmental organizations. In just
a short time during his tenure, the
organization grew from 24 member
groups to 80. He also serves on the
Board of Directors of the Jewish
National Fund.
As if all that weren’t enough, Tal
spent 15 years teaching
environmental law at Tel Aviv
University. “I wasn’t sure I wanted
to be involved in the academic
world,” Tal says. “I’m an activist.
My field is public policy. Although
I’ve always been involved in
research, I had the idea that
academics were not always fully
engaged in world problems – and
real problems are what I love best.
But BGU offered me a great
opportunity, the best of both worlds.
I’m teaching, I have a vigorous
research agenda, but I’m also
intensely involved in public policy
– the Ministry of Environment or
Israel’s Knesset is my lab. For me,
this is ideal.”
Tal’s current research focuses on
water management and stream
restoration, evaluation of
environmental education and
desertification policies. A member
of both the Mitrani Department of
Desert Ecology and the Department
of Man in the Desert at the Jacob
Blaustein Institutes for Desert
Research, Tal represents the
Blaustein Institutes on a number of
international committees.
Last January, Tal – sometimes
referred to as “Nature’s Lawyer” –
was awarded the prestigious Charles
Bronfman Prize in recognition of his
work “to advance the environmental
movement in Israel and the Jewish
world.” The Bronfman family noted
Tal’s uniqueness: “He’s an
outstanding environmental
visionary who set out to change the
world and has actually done so.”
Environmentalism in Israel differs
from that in the US, Tal says. "One
of Israel’s distinguishing
characteristics is our technological
optimism. We’re big advocates of
innovations like drip irrigation to
preserve water or using forests to
control desertification while offering
recreation at the same time. Our new
desalination plants are straight out
of science fiction. But ultimately,
technology can only go so far. At the
center is the essence of who we are,
of identifying the things that give
meaning and value to our lives.”
“My family was very Zionistic,”
he says. “When I was 20, I had my
Bachelors degree and I enlisted in
the Israel Defense Forces. It was
during the years that I served as a
paratrooper that I began to focus on
the environment as the place where
I could make the greatest
contribution. When you’re a soldier,
you get a very different view of the
world and one of the first things that
began to bother me was litter. There
is something of an insouciant
attitude among many Israelis – the
paradox of apartments being so
clean you can eat off the floor, but
outside, on the stairs or on the
streets, they throw trash right on the
ground.
“I think it’s really a matter of
education. In all the years I've been
The environment isn’t a spectator sport, we need players
involved, I’ve seen that Israelis care
deeply about the health of their
communities. They love this land.
When we learn to tap into that love,
we can succeed – it’ll be just like the
Wildflower Campaign of the 1960s.
Forty years ago, all of Israel’s
wildflowers were disappearing –
people were picking them. So a huge
‘Wildflower Campaign’ was started,
with a message aimed primarily at
children: ‘Don’t pick the flowers’. It
worked – now, no Israeli would even
think of picking a wildflower. They
learned it as children and they didn't
forget. We have to do the same thing
again with other major
environmental issues – air pollution,
open space, the lack of urban
planning, water quality.”
Even for a powerhouse like Tal,
turning the ship of the Israeli state
in a completely different direction
sounds like a gargantuan task. “It
may be, but you have to do what
you can. This is life. You don’t get
dress rehearsals.”
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