Plastic Bag Nightmare by Zainub

Today the big environmental news was China’s decision to ban free plastic bags.

We’ve spoken out against plastic bags before.  And now we’re going to do it again.  Plastic bags do terrible damage to our environment and have an enormous impact on sea life in particular.  In November 2007, Israel’s Ministry of the Environment published a report under their program “Clean Beaches” stating that 80% of all beach garbage is made up of plastics. 

Now Zalul and other leading Israeli environmental NGOs are petitioning for an end to free plastic bags. 

Do your part and sign the petition today (warning, it’s in Hebrew).

From Globes Magazine:

Kahn’s environmental campaigns began at the end of the 1990s. His son, Benjamin, who was recently named by “Time” magazine as one of its “Heroes of the Environment,” along with Nobel peace prize laureate, former US Vice President Al Gore, Mikhail Gorbachev, and Prince Charles, returned to Israel after spending 15 years building underwater observatories along the coral reefs off the coasts of Australia and Hawaii. Sometime after his return, he went diving in Eilat, and told his father what he saw afterward. “Do you remember the wonderful reef?” he asked him. “It’s almost gone.”

Kahn, who some years earlier built the underwater observatory in Eilat, got on the phone to then Ministry of the Environment director general Nehama Ronen. After this conversation he decided to set up Zalul, a non-profit organization that would fight to remove pollutants from the Red Sea. Chief among the perpetrators were by the fish cages operated by Dagsuf and Ardag Red Sea Mariculture Ltd., both companies that belonging to kibbutzim in the Arava region. Later the Kahn family joined forces with the Society for the Protection of Nature, and the other environmental groups. The fish farming companies hit back with intensive political lobbying, and tried to paint Kahn as someone whose actions were driven by his real estate business interests.

The saga, as is known, came to an end recently with a ruling by the relevant government authorities and the courts that the fish cages must be cleared from the Red Sea by mid-2008. After a campaign lasting 15 years, this is a rare victory for green organizations in Israel.

The Jerusalem Post has an enlightening article about the wake-up call Israeli decision makers are getting in the aftermath of the Bali summit this month.

Though Israeli did not have a formal delegation at the summit, members of the Knesset as well as staff from an assortment of environmental NGOs attended.

“Israel cannot afford to continue with the status quo. As a country that wants to be considered a top economic competitor, it can’t be ranked with developing countries over greenhouse gas emissions. Countries we consider the Third World are ahead of us when it comes to fighting greenhouse gases,” said MK Ophir Paz-Pines (Labor), who also chairs the Knesset Committee on the Interior and the Environment.

And now, marine scientists from across the globe have published a major study arguing that global warming will cause incredible damage to the coral reefs of the world.

At stake, added Ove Hoegh-Guldberg, director of the Center for Marine Studies at the University of Queensland, Australia, and the study’s senior author, are ecosystems that play vital roles in providing habitats for a vast array of marine species that are essential to the oceans’ complex food chain. They also provide livelihoods to 100 million people who live along the coasts of tropical developing countries. Diving tourism in the Caribbean alone is estimated to generate more than $100 billion a year. The loss of coral reef ecosystems also is exposing people to flooding, coastal erosion and the loss of food and income from reef-based fisheries and tourism, he added.

Hopefully this wake-up call to Israel’s leaders isn’t coming too late.

October 21, 2007 will go down in Israel’s environmental history as the day the coral reefs in the Gulf of Eilat were given a chance to live.

After years of debate in the media, the courtroom, and the public sphere, the final word on the fish cages was given by Attorney General Menachem Mazuz, who declared that they must be removed from the sea by June 2008 - no exceptions.

There will be no more opportunities for the polluters to appeal this decision. Nor will government officials be able to step in any longer to postpone the final removal. June 2008. Done and done.

And not to toot our horn too much, but if you open any of the Israeli newspapers and read about this issue you’ll see Zalul’s name listed as the key player in this battle. In fact, the timing of this decision has come at the exact same time as our Board Chairman Benjamin Kahn has been awarded by Time Magazine as a “Hero of the Environment”. The coral reefs were what brought our organization together. A shared love for the sea and the amazing marine environment that lives under the waves.

What we have learned in these eight years of battling the polluters of Israel’s seas and rivers is that thousands of others also share our love for water. Surfers, swimmers, and science enthusiasts, fathers and mothers and their children building castles in the sand - we all have a connection to water and to nature.  More than that, these thousands upon thousands of supporters recognize the importance of protecting and maintaining unique habitats and ecosystems like the coral reefs and are willing to go out of their way to do so.

Thank you to all of those who have supported Zalul in this fight.  Your contributions - whether monetary, voluntary, or in spirit from far away - mean a great deal to us all.

(Photo via Time Magazine)

Today Time Magazine announced its Heroes of the Environment - leaders and visionaries, activists, scientists and innovators, moguls and entrepreneurs. Among them is Zalul’s Board Chairman Benjamin Kahn. He is joined by environmentalists across the globe including Nobel Peace Prize winners Al Gore and Wangari Maathai, naturalist and broadcaster David Attenborough, and many others.

Says Time about the Heroes:

They range from one end of this endangered earth to the other — from Kenya to Korea, Britain to Brazil, Canada to China. By their words and their actions, by their votes and even their checkbooks, TIME’s environmental heroes have stepped into the silence, and in doing so, have given the earth a voice. It remains for the rest of us to listen — and join them.

Benjamin Kahn (known to his friends as Benji) has devoted himself to the protection of the Gulf of Eilat and the coral reef ecosystem that inhabits it. We have always known that Benjie was Israel’s environmental hero and today we are immensely proud that he has been awarded the honor on a global scale as well.

Read more about Benjamin Kahn on Time Magazine’s website.