"Environmental Education" Issues Bulletin for World Day to Combat Desertification and Drought

SadaNews - The Center for Environmental Education, affiliated with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Jordan and the Holy Land, issued an informative bulletin today, Tuesday, in conjunction with World Day to Combat Desertification and Drought, which occurs on June 17 each year.

The center stated in its statement that this year’s activities are held under the theme "Pastures: Recognizing their Value, Respecting them, and Restoring them," aiming to expand recognition of the economic, environmental, and cultural value of pastures, respect for the traditional custodians, and promote investment in the restoration of degraded pastures.

The bulletin indicated that this year’s event aligns with the International Year of Rangelands and Pastoralists, emphasizing the need to raise awareness, encourage responsible investment, and strengthen policies that protect pastures and the livelihoods of pastoralists.

Pastures: Half of the Land

It reported from United Nations organizations that pastures are among the largest ecosystems in the world, yet they receive significant neglect, covering more than half of the Earth's land area, playing a vital role in achieving food security, regulating water cycles, conserving biodiversity, and enhancing resilience to climate change. Furthermore, they support the livelihoods of nearly two billion people worldwide, including many pastoralists and indigenous peoples who have preserved their knowledge and stewardship of these landscapes across generations.

The bulletin addressed the degradation of up to half of the world's pastures or their exposure to risk, leaving serious consequences for food and water security, biodiversity, resilience to climate change, and rural livelihoods.

It discussed estimates from the United Nations and its specialized agencies regarding the potential for investment in sustainable land and water management, improving drought preparedness, and supporting community-led restoration that could contribute to securing these landscapes and the people who rely on them.

28% of the West Bank are Pasture Lands

The bulletin summarized Palestinian data concerning the area that can be considered as pastures in Palestine, which amounts to 2.02 million dunams (28% of the West Bank area), with 69% of this located on the eastern slopes; however, only 700,000 dunams of these pastures are available for grazing.

It explained that the separation wall has consumed 318,804 dunams of pasture land; an amount equivalent to 19% of the total pasture area in the West Bank.

According to the Palestinian News and Information Agency (Wafa), the total dry matter from the pastures reaches 52,400 tons annually; equivalent to 36,680 tons of barley; enough to cover the needs of 105,000 heads of sheep and goats, containing 268 types of legumes and 198 types of grasses.

It referred to the occupation's control over most of the pasture areas: before 1967, the pastures were open to Palestinian herders. With the beginning of the occupation, the pasture area significantly shrank to less than 20% of the total available grazing land, as Israel confiscated large areas for military training, settlement purposes, building the separation wall, and bypass roads.

It highlighted the conversion of extensive pasture areas into nature reserves, closing them to Palestinian herders, as the occupation authorities declared vast areas of grazing lands as nature reserves in which grazing is prohibited; noting that all nature reserve designations were made by the occupation only and not recognized by the national authority.

Occupational Control

The bulletin pointed out the imposition of strict restrictions on freedom of movement and access to grazing areas, as is the case in the northern Jordan Valley, alongside pasture impoverishment due to the reduction of land available for grazing for Palestinian livestock breeders caused by occupation policies; this has increased grazing pressure in available land, resulting in the degradation of the pastures and the extinction of many of their plant species, leading to decreased productivity and, consequently, reduced profits for Palestinian livestock breeders due to their loss of a vital and inexpensive source of feed for their animals, prompting them to rely on expensive fodder.

It also addressed challenges posed by Israeli settlement pastures, indiscriminate and early overgrazing, the conversion of pastures into agricultural lands, urban encroachment at the expense of pastures, excessive uprooting of trees and shrubs, increased soil erosion, and fires that destroy vegetation, alongside drought, climate fluctuations, random movement, and the use of heavy transportation means within pastures, and environmental pollution due to random waste dumps and sewage.

136 Pastoral Outposts

The bulletin reviewed the reality of pastoral settlement; from 1984 to 2012, the number of settlement outposts reached around 18 pastoral outposts, and during the period between 2017 and 2021, around 35 additional outposts were established.

Since the outbreak of the Israeli aggression on the Gaza Strip in October 2023, there has been a noticeable acceleration in settlement expansion, with 70 new pastoral outposts established from the beginning of the aggression until the end of March 2025.

The number of pastoral settlement outposts from 1984 until March 2025 has reached approximately 136, which covers an area equivalent to three times the built-up area of existing settlements in the West Bank and Jerusalem, according to the Wall and Settlement Resistance Commission, which also announced that the number of settlers in the West Bank reached approximately 770,000 by the end of 2024, distributed across 180 settlements and 256 colonial outposts, including 136 agricultural pastoral outposts.

It stated that the pastoral outposts are concentrated in the Palestinian areas adjacent to Israeli settlements in the West Bank, including Jerusalem, with a particular concentration in the Jordan Valley extending from the city of Tubas in the north to Masafer Yatta in southern Hebron, as well as the eastern slopes of the West Bank, areas characterized by unique geographical features, with incidents reaching northern West Bank regions in the first half of 2026.

It added that by January 2024, according to the Palestinian Studies Institution, the city of Hebron recorded the highest number of pastoral settlement outposts at 22, followed by Ramallah with 21, then Nablus with 14, while Tubas recorded 9, Bethlehem 8, and Salfit 6, and Jericho and Jenin 4 outposts each, while only one outpost was recorded in Tulkarem. These outposts alone cover more than 480,000 dunams of land, the majority of which is in the Jordan Valley and eastern slopes, representing three times the built-up areas within existing settlements.

According to the bulletin, the phenomenon of pastoral settlement began following the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Jerusalem in 1967 when settler gangs began seizing Palestinian lands and converting them into pastures for their livestock. Over time, these practices evolved from individual initiatives to a systematic policy, reaching its peak in the mid-1980s, with the establishment of the first pastoral outpost in 1984 on lands in the city of Hebron in the southern West Bank, at that time housing around 850 settlers.

The pastoral settlement outposts are divided into three main types: central outposts, which are stable outposts concentrated around livestock grazing; sub-outposts, which are established to serve expansion goals related to central outposts; and temporary outposts, established for a specified period in targeted areas to prevent Palestinians from accessing their lands, later transitioning into permanent settlement areas gradually incorporated into larger outposts or official settlements.

Calls and Appeals

The bulletin concluded with a call to protect the remaining grazing areas accessible in the West Bank governorates and the necessity of organizing grazing through procedures and timings for opening and closing these areas to preserve the vegetation from overgrazing.

It also called on the world to be informed about the occupation's plundering of pastures and the risks of pastoral colonization and its threats to human beings and places through a national and international campaign to highlight the implications of pastoral settlements on people and the environment.

It urged relevant authorities to undertake a national effort to protect biodiversity from wild harvesting, cutting, and overgrazing, emphasize planting native species of trees, shrubs, and crops, and avoid invasive species.

The bulletin demanded practical measures to protect pastures and nature reserves from unplanned urban encroachment, limit fires, and cease the chaos of random waste disposal.