GazelleValley Parkopened March 30th in westernJerusalem. It is in the middle of an area filled with busyroads and neighborhoods. The park is home to manydifferent kinds of birds and animals, including turtles,toads and mountain gazelles. The gazelles areendangered. Many Israelis considered them anunofficial symbol of their country.
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It took a lot of time and effort to set up the new wildlifearea. Environmentalists, rights activists and othersworked together to block a housing and industrial planfor the valley in the late 1990s. The proposeddevelopment threatened not only to destroy the home of the gazelles, but also limited public use of the valley’sgreen spaces.
In 2008, the mayor of Jerusalem decided the landshould be a nature park. Later, the city raised $5 million to help build it.
Amir Balaban works with the Society for the Protection of Nature in Israel.
“This is a community urban wildlife site. The park is 50 acres, half of whichare designated for the gazelles, and basically, everything beyond this yellowrope is gazelle land. And everything on this side is for people. So this is howwe share with nature.”
Mr. Balaban and other activists fought a nearly 20-year long battle to keepbusinesses and homes from being built on the land.
“Well, the idea, first of all, started off when people around the valleyunderstood the developers are going to take hold of this public open space.With them joined a lot of NGOs that understood that this is a very importantbattle.”
Michal Regev is a Gazelle Valley neighborhood activist.
“Our first victory was that the committee that had to decide about it said ‘Theyare right,’ and just rejected the whole (development) program. (And then a)bigger committee said ‘Okay, now you have the mandate to prepare aprogram that will be an answer to what the public wants.’”
About 100,000 people have visited Gazelle Valley Park since it opened almostfour months ago. Raphoel Wolpin of Jerusalem is one of them. On his firstvisit to the park, he brought his wife and children.
“My first impressions is that it’s good to have something of nature next tourban centers (so that) you don’t have to travel far to see all types of naturalphenomena.”
He is happy the activists were able to defeat the builders.
“A lot of times the public loses because of developers that want to makemoney, and it’s good that sometimes, we win. Sometimes the public wins.”
Mr. Wolpin is an Orthodox Jew. He notes that Jerusalem is home to people ofmany different religions.
Amir Balaban and the Society for the Protection of Nature in Israel are workingwith the country’s government to create parks in other cities. He says officialsin other nations should build urban wildlife parks like Gazelle Valley.
“In general, this model can be applied all over the world, whether it's in theTropics, in the Mediterranean habitats, desert habitats, even (the) Arctic.Just leave some space for nature, make sure it can sustain itself, manage itvery gently and let people in so they can enjoy all this beauty.”
I’m Christopher Jones-Cruise.
VOA's Michael Lipin reported this story from Jerusalem. Christopher Jones-Cruise adapted it for Learning English. George Grow was the editor.
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Words in This Story
urban– adj. of or relating to cities and the people who live in them
symbol – n. an object or sign that expresses or represents an idea or quality
site– n. the place where something is or was
designate(d)– v. to mark, show or represent (something)
NGO– n. non-governmental organization
mandate– n. authority, approval or power to take an action
phenomena– n. (plural of “phenomenon”) qualities of someone or something;something that can be observed as a part of a person or thing
habitat – n. the place where a plant or animal normally lives
Tropics– n. the part of the world that is near the Equator
sustain – v. support; to provide what is needed for (something or someone) to exist or continue
