This article may have misleading content.(December 2020) |
National parks of Israel are declared historic sites or nature reserves, which are mostly operated and maintained by the National Nature and Parks Authority. As of 2015, Israel maintains 81 national parks and more than 400 nature reserves, many of them in the occupied West Bank, that protect 2,500 species of indigenous wild plants, 32 species of fish, 530 species of birds and 100 species of mammals. [1] [2]
The parks and reserves were frequently declared around the ruins of the depopulated and subsequently demolished towns and villages of the 1948 Palestinian expulsion and flight; 182 historical Palestinian built up areas are located within Israel's parks and reserves. [3] [4] Some parks are located at archaeological sites such as Tel Megiddo, Beit She'an, Ashkelon and Kursi. Others, such as the Alexander stream, Mount Carmel National Park or Hurshat Tal focus on nature and the preservation of local flora and fauna. Several parks and nature reserves have camping options, such as tent grounds and bungalows, open to small groups and individual campers. [5] Some of them are located in the Israeli-occupied territories of the Golan Heights and the West Bank.
In 2011, the most popular national parks were Yarkon National Park, Caesarea, Ein Gedi and Tel Dan. [6]
From the 1920s onwards, the British Mandatory government passed laws aimed at saving the local flora and fauna. In 1924 a Hunting Act was published and in 1926 a Forest Ordinance were published. Many sites, such as the forests of Mount Carmel and Mount Meron, were declared forest reserves; certain trees were declared protected.
In 1953 the Knesset passed the Wildlife Protection Law (חוק הגנת חיות-הבר) and the Minister of Agriculture was appointed for its implementation. In 1955, the department for the improvement of the country's landscape (המחלקה לשיפור נוף הארץ) was established in the Israeli Prime Minister's Office, which was assigned the establishment of tourist infrastructure. The department established a number of well-known national parks, such as Gan HaShlosha, Caesarea, Shivta and Avdat. Following the ecologically disastrous drying of Lake Hula and the resulting public pressure, the Hula Reserve was established in 1964, which was the first declared nature reserve in Israel. In 1963 the Knesset approved the "National parks and nature reserves act" (חוק הגנים הלאומיים ושמורות הטבע), whose legislation process had already began in 1956. As a result, two authorities were established: the National Parks Authority and the Nature Reserves Authority. In 1998 the two authorities were merged into one body - Israel Nature and Parks Authority.
The last observation of an Arabian leopard took place in the northern Arabah area in 2010/11. [7] It is possibly extinct in the country. [8]
In Israel the distinction between national parks and nature reserves is often hard to make. National parks are in most cases centered around archaeological sites, but sometimes include protected nature habitats. The nature reserves often contain not just protected fauna and flora, but also major archaeological sites. The Hermon Stream Nature Reserve for instance covers a stretch of forested land, but also the vast remains of the ancient city of Banias/Caesarea Philippi. Sometimes an administrative separation is made, as for instance at the Judean desert oasis of Ein Gedi, home to both the Ein Gedi Antiquities National Park and Ein Gedi Nature Reserve.
This is a partial list, containing only the best known national parks.
Name | Region |
---|---|
Baptismal Site on the Jordan River - Qasr al-Yahud [10] | Southern District: Judean Desert |
Herodion National Park | Southern District: Judean Desert/West Bank |
Hermon Stream (Banias) Nature Reserve (Banias/Caesarea Philippi archaeological site and Hermon Stream nature reserve) | Northern District: Golan Heights |
Kursi National Park | Northern District: Golan Heights |
Nimrod Fortress National Park (Qal'at Namrud) | Northern District: Golan Heights |
Qumran National Park | Southern District: Judean Desert and the Dead Sea |
Sebastia National Park (Samaria/Shomron) [11] | Central District: Samaria/West Bank |
This is a partial list, containing only the best known nature reserves.
Name | Region |
---|---|
Ein Prat Nature Reserve [13] | Jerusalem district, West Bank |
Einot Tzukim (Ein Feshkha) Nature Reserve (nature reserve and archaeological site) | Southern District: Judean Desert and the Dead Sea (West Bank) |
Gamla Nature Reserve (archaeological site and nature reserve) | Northern District: Golan Heights |
Hermon Stream (Banias) Nature Reserve (with Caesarea Philippi archaeological site) | Northern District: Golan Heights |
Snir Stream (Nahal Senir) Nature Reserve | Northern District: Golan Heights |
Yehudiya Forest Nature Reserve | Northern District: Golan Heights down to Sea of Galilee |
The geography of Israel is very diverse, with desert conditions in the south, and snow-capped mountains in the north. Israel is located at the eastern end of the Mediterranean Sea in West Asia. It is bounded to the north by Lebanon, the northeast by Syria, the east by Jordan and the West Bank, and to the southwest by Egypt. To the west of Israel is the Mediterranean Sea, which makes up the majority of Israel's 273 km (170 mi) coastline, and the Gaza Strip. Israel has a small coastline on the Red Sea in the south.
Dan is an ancient city mentioned in the Hebrew Bible, described as the northernmost city of the Kingdom of Israel, and belonging to the tribe of Dan.
Tel Dor or Tell el-Burj, also Khirbet el-Burj in Arabic, is an archaeological site located on the Israeli coastal plain of the Mediterranean Sea next to modern moshav Dor, about 30 kilometers (19 mi) south of Haifa, and 2.5 kilometers (1.6 mi) west of Hadera. Lying on a small headland at the north side of a protected inlet, it is identified with D-jr of Egyptian sources, Biblical Dor, and with Dor/Dora of Greek and Roman sources.
Ein Gedi, also spelled En Gedi, meaning "spring of the kid", is an oasis, an archeological site and a nature reserve in Israel, located west of the Dead Sea, near Masada and the Qumran Caves. Ein Gedi, a kibbutz, was established nearby in 1954.
Banias or Banyas is a site in the Golan Heights near a natural spring, once associated with the Greek god Pan. It had been inhabited for 2,000 years, until it was abandoned and destroyed following the Six-Day War. It is located at the foot of Mount Hermon, north of the Golan Heights, in the Israeli portion. The spring is the source of the Banias River, one of the main tributaries of the Jordan River. Archaeologists uncovered a shrine dedicated to Pan and related deities, and the remains of an ancient city founded sometime after the conquest by Alexander the Great and inhabited until 1967. The ancient city was mentioned in the Gospels of Matthew and Mark, under the name of Caesarea Philippi, as the place where Jesus confirmed Peter's confession that Jesus was the Messiah; the site is today a place of pilgrimage for Christians.
The Nimrod Fortress or Nimrod Castle is a castle built by the Ayyubids and hugely enlarged by the Mamluks, situated on the southern slopes of Mount Hermon, on a ridge rising about 800 m above sea level. It overlooks the Golan Heights and was built with the purpose of guarding a major access route to Damascus against armies coming from the west.
The Hula Valley is an agricultural region in northern Israel with abundant fresh water that used to be Lake Hula before it was drained. It is a major stopover for birds migrating along the Great Rift Valley between Africa, Europe, and Asia.
El Wad is an Epipalaeolithic archaeological site in Mount Carmel, Israel. The site has two components: El Wad Cave, also known as Mugharat el-Wad or HaNahal Cave ; and El Wad Terrace, located immediately outside the cave.
The Tabun Cave is an excavated site located at Nahal Me'arot Nature Reserve, Israel and is one of the Human Evolution sites at Mount Carmel, which were proclaimed as having universal value by UNESCO in 2012.
The Israel National Trail is a hiking trail that crosses the entire length of the country of Israel, with its northern end at Kibbutz Kfar Giladi, near the Lebanese border in the far north of the country, extending to Eilat at the southernmost tip of Israel on the Red Sea, with a total length of 1,040 km (650 mi). The trail was inaugurated in 1995.
Tourism in Israel is one of the country's major sources of income, with a record 4.55 million tourist arrivals in 2019. Tourism contributed NIS 20 billion to the Israeli economy in 2017, making it an all-time record. Israel offers a plethora of historical and religious sites, beach resorts, natural sites, archaeological tourism, heritage tourism, adventure tourism, and ecotourism. For practical reasons, this article also covers tourism in the Israeli-occupied West Bank and the occupied Golan Heights, since it is closely interconnected with the mass tourism in Israel. Over the millennia the Holy Land has been amongst the most visited lands in the world.
Highway 90 is the longest Israeli road, at about 480 kilometres (300 mi), and stretches from Metula and the northern border with Lebanon, along the western side of the Sea of Galilee, through the Jordan River Valley, along the Dead Sea's western bank, through the Arabah valley, and until Eilat and the southern border with Egypt on the Red Sea. The central section of the road traverses the Israeli-occupied West Bank. While it passes near the city of Jericho, it runs through Area C and does not enter areas controlled by the Palestinian Authority.
Mount Meron is a mountain in the Upper Galilee region of Israel. It has special significance in Jewish religious tradition and parts of it have been declared a nature reserve. At 1,204 metres (3,950 ft) above sea level, Mount Meron is the highest peak in Israel within the Green Line, though many peaks in the Golan Heights and Mount Hermon, which was annexed by Israel in 1981, are higher.
Omrit, or Khirbat ‘Umayrī, is the site of an ancient Roman temple. It stands where the western slopes of the Golan Heights meet the Upper Jordan Valley, in the 1949 Israel–Syria demilitarised zone.
The wildlife of Israel includes the flora and fauna of Israel, which is extremely diverse due to the country's location between the temperate and the tropical zones, bordering the Mediterranean Sea in the west and the desert in the east. Species such as the Syrian brown bear and the Arabian ostrich have become extinct in Israel because of their loss of habitat. As of May 2007, 190 nature reserves have been established in Israel.
The Israel Nature and Parks Authority is an Israeli government organization that manages nature reserves and national parks in Israel, the Golan Heights and parts of the West Bank. The organization was founded in April 1998, merging two organizations that had managed the nature reserves and national parks separately since 1964. The director of the Authority is Raya Shurki.
Ein Feshkha or Einot Tzukim is a 2,500 ha nature reserve and archaeological site on the north-western shore of the Dead Sea, about 3 km (1.9 mi) south of Qumran in the West Bank, Palestine. It is located just north of the headland Râs Feshkhah, the "headland of Feshkhah". Within the reserve is a group of springs of brackish water. The nature reserve consists of an open section with pools of mineral water for bathing surrounded by high foliage and a section that is closed to visitors to protect the native flora and fauna.
Hurshat Tal is a national park and nature reserve in the Northern District of Israel. In 1968, 765 dunams were declared national park lands and 107 dunams were declared a nature reserve.
The Sea to Sea Hiking Trail is a long distance hiking trail that crosses the north of Israel, its western end on the coast of the Mediterranean Sea at Achziv National Park near the Lebanese border in the far north of the country, extending eastward to the coast of the Sea of Gallilee near Kibbutz Ginosar, with a total length of about 70 km (43 mi). When hiked from west to east the total elevation gain and loss are about 1.56 km and 1.77 km respectively. The trail is marked with different colors in different sections but is accompanied by purple circles throughout the trail. It takes an average of 3–5 days to complete.
The Caves of Nahal Me’arot / Wadi el-Mughara, named here by the Hebrew and Arabic name of the valley where they are located, are a UNESCO Site of Human Evolution in the Carmel mountain range near Haifa in northern Israel.