Jordan River mayors commit to water cooperation

By Paul Tate

AMMAN — Jordanian and Israeli mayors came together earlier this week in an attempt to breath life back into the Jordan River tributaries and promote tourism and development in their respective communities.

In a ceremony by the ancient ruins of the Roman city of Pella near the banks of the River Jordan, the Jordanian mayor of the town, Maoun Alloneh, and his Israeli counterpart from Beit Shean, Jacky Levi, signed a memorandum of understanding to cooperate on shared water issues.

“The mayors at this historic ceremony committed to rehabilitate their streams and the River Jordan, understanding that the cultural landscape of the Jordan Valley is an untapped treasure that could attract tens of thousands of tourists,” said Munqeth Mehyar, Jordanian chairperson of Friends of the Earth Middle East (FoEME), a cross-border NGO that organised the meeting.

Under the terms of the memorandum, a master plan will now be developed for side streams of the River Jordan’s Wadi Ziglab in Jordan and Harod Stream in Israel based on the tourism potential of this historic landscape.

The agreement forms part of the Good Water Neighbours (GWN) project, established by EcoPeace/FoEME in 2001 to raise awareness of the shared water problems of Palestinians, Jordanians and Israelis.

The idea behind the project is based on identifying cross-border communities and utilising their mutual dependence on shared water resources as a basis for developing dialogue and cooperation on sustainable water management.

“We came to the conclusion that the best way to solve the problems of this area was to let communities deal with each other directly, while also involving key decision makers such as local municipal officials and mayors,” said Mehyar.

The river has suffered intense environmental degradation over the years as a result of shortsighted development plans, according to FoEME.

During the 1960s, around 1.3 billion cubic metres of water flowed every year from Lake Tiberias to the Dead Sea.

But dams, canals and pumping stations built by Israel, Jordan and Syria to divert water for crops and drinking have reduced the flow by more than 90 per cent to about 100 million cubic metres.

Years of conflict and mismanagement among the main users of the river have contributed to the crisis, according to environmentalists.

Although the 1994 peace treaty between Jordan and Israel called for the rehabilitation of the river, so far little progress has been achieved.

As a result, on both sides of the Jordan Valley, streams that once flowed through communities such as those around Pella and Beit Shean are now either dry or polluted.

“The environmental problems in the tributaries are really severe with no fresh water as a result of the construction of dams and raw sewage flowing directly into the river,” said Mehyar.

Israeli director of FoEME, Gidon Bromberg, said the organisation has been campaigning for over two years on the need to rehabilitate the Jordan River and the final push came from the communities themselves.

“The meeting is the product of community support and understanding by municipal leaders that their residents cannot wait for central government and an end of conflict in the region,” he added.

The GWN project is sponsored by the EU Partnership for Peace Programme, the UK government and Goldman Fund.

Friday-Saturday, November 24-25, 2006