BUSTAN

1999:  BUSTAN is founded by Devorah Brous.  BUSTAN's first big project is a two day festival in the unrecognized village of Dreijatt, bringing together hundreds of Bedouin and Jewish Israelis and internationals, and included cultural exchange, mutual education on history and environmental issues, collecting signatures on a petition to recognize the village and lots of fun!  Two months later, the village is recognized.

2000-2002:  In the dark days of the intifada, BUSTAN worked with Bedouin communities on the edge of Jerusalem and with new Ethiopian and Russian immigrants. Through hard physical work and a publicity campaign, we got the nightmare conditions of the health clinic of the absorption center Givat HaMatos cleaned up and educated parents and their children (with clowns!) about potential health issues.

With a coalition of other organizations, including Rabbis for Human Rights, ICAHD, Physicians for Human Rights, Palestine Medical Relief Society, and Medical Relief Committees, BUSTAN helped open a school, refurnish and re-open a medical clinic, make solidarity visits and distribute supplies,  and publicized the plight of the Jahalin Bedouin.

2003-2005:  We organized five hundred Jewish and Bedouin volunteers to build an entirely sustainable medical clinic in the unrecognized village of Wadi el Na'am.  Made of mud and straw bale and solar powered, volunteer medical personnel staffed the clinic until the Israeli government built a clinic in the village a year later.  The clinic is included in the book “Design Like you Give a Damn,” has been featured on Architecture for Humanity's homepage, and was nominated for the Aga Khan Award, one of the most prestigious architecture prizes in the world

2005-2007: Transforming the school dump in the unrecognized village of Abu Tlul into a water-conserving orchard, while simultaneously teaching children about local ecology and sustainability.

2007:  BUSTAN moves to Beersheva!  We open our Green Center, and are able to host long-term volunteers and delegations for the first time, as well as have a physical place to build our community.  Also this year, BUSTAN becomes an officially registered amuta, or NGO, and Devorah Brous, our founder, passes the Directorship of the organization to Bedouin activist Ra'ed Al Mickawi.  We are now fully integrated as a community-based organization.

Your browser may not support display of this image.Our permaculture course, the first ever joint course for Bedouin and Jewish students, begins in April, and BUSTAN TV, our video documentation and editing course for women begins in June.

How We Work

BUSTAN is a Solution-Oriented Environmental Justice Organization.  BUSTAN exposes key environmental justice struggles, and presses for government and corporate accountability by catalyzing strategic community action. BUSTAN facilitates innovative projects to build/plant community infrastructure. Our projects merge traditional knowledge with modern green technology, and are vital until systemic solutions are legitimated in the Israeli Courts and comprehensive decisions are fully-implemented on the ground. BUSTAN advances cost-effective, replicable models for a sustainable form of development that is culturally appropriate, for both Jewish and Bedouin populations.

BUSTAN views sustainability in both social and environmental terms. BUSTAN examines issues of environmental degradation and disappearance of the rural landscape as a by-product of the continued territorial war. We examine the social and environmental impact of development on the people and the land in the region. It involves placing the reciprocal questions of resource exploitation and resource allocation at the center, particularly in the area referred to as "The Last Frontier."

BUSTAN views sustainability in both political and environmental terms. Although environmental concerns are continually relegated to the bottom of the priority list in the face of the security issues of the State, BUSTAN sees them as vital and integral to the future of the state. We look at the implications of exploiting, over-developing, and over-settling this land. Until we can address the existing strain on resources with which Israel already contends, until we can conceive of radical new ways to accommodate the region's current inhabitants without further degrading and deteriorating the health of its people - we should not be considering yet more unsound development. Your browser may not support display of this image.

We work for common Jewish and Bedouin interests. We are interested in efforts which promote genuine convergence around Jewish and Arab interests. BUSTAN seeks to identify and work towards common goals around the necessity of equitably sharing land, water, and energy. Our work is intrinsically based on an acknowledgment of the inequities between the sides and acts as a vehicle for challenging the way public resources are shared and divided among us as inhabitants of the land. We see the question of resource allocation as the fundamental core issue upon which our future health as individuals and peoples rely. The peoples of this land are mutually dependent and thrive best in cooperation.

Bringing the Margins to the Core.. Greening, not Blackening, the Desert

Focusing on the most marginalized communities in the region, since 1999 BUSTAN's focus has been on the poorest communities in the largest yet most peripheral region of the country – the Negev/Naqab Desert. People residing in this triangle of land share some 2.5% of the Negev/Naqab with Israel's nuclear reactor, 22 agro and petro-chemical factories, an oil terminal, closed military zones, a munitions plant, an oil terminal, multiple quarries, a toxic waste incinerator, cell phone antennae, a power plant, several airports, a prison, and two rivers of open sewage. This as an area where the poorest communities suffer the highest infant mortality rates, the highest unemployment and school drop-out rates, living in the most peripheral region of the country.

We Work to Reduce the Isolation of the Negev. Our aim is to create a network of people through the Negev, the region, and the world whose eyes are steered to the Negev, and who can support the efforts of Jews and Arabs who live and work together in the desert.

A sustainable Negev is a place where traditional building and planting practices in a strongly self-determined desert culture are merged with modern green appropriate technologies in order to minimize the impacts of urbanization, overpopulation, and over-consumption. A sustainable Negev is a place where workers have access to safe workplaces in sync with environmental justice principles. A sustainable Negev is a place where the economic and health needs of residents are regarded as reciprocal. A sustainable Negev is a place where the ties of all peoples to this international heritage site are respected.

Learn about the Negev

The Negev(Naquab)

The Negev (Naqab in Arabic), the desert region in southern Israel,  makes up 60% of Israel's land, but only 8% of Israel's population live here, approximately 379,000 Jews and 160,000 Bedouin.  

85% of the Negev is used by the Israeli Army for training purposes and is thus off-limits. Additionally, Israel’s largest toxic waste dump, Ramat Hovav, is near Beersheva, the main city of the Negev, and right next to the unrecognized village of Wadi Na'am.  Since its opening in 1979, it has had a history of leakages, overflows, and failures. 

The whole area is a rocky desert, but there are actually five ecological zones, with the northern zone the most fertile.  

The Bedouin of the Negev

Approximately 160,000 Bedouins in the Negev live in a combination of “unrecognized” villages and “development” towns.  In the 45 unrecognized villages where approximately half the Bedouin live, the residents live in conditions vastly inferior to other Israeli citizens, including not being able to build permanent structures, no running water, no sewage service, no connection to electricity, inferior roads, and severely limited healthcare and education.  They are also under constant threat of home demolitions by the Israeli government.  The unrecognized villages have organized themselves into the Regional Council of Unrecognized Villages (RCUV) to fight together for recognition and equal services.

In recent years nine Bedouin villages have been “recognized” by the Israeli government and now make up the Abu Basma regional council.  However, they still lack the basic services of Jewish Israeli municipalities.

The remaining portion of the Bedouin population live in seven development towns that have some of the lowest socio-economic indicators in the country.  Additionally, these townships have the lowest municipal budgets in Israel, lower water allotments than their Jewish neighbors, inadequate sewage infrastructure, interior roads, and links to public transportation (which limits accessibility to labor markets and educational opportunities), and a lack of public facilities like banks, post offices, and libraries.

The Bedouin first appeared in the Negev 7,000 years ago and are the longest running continuing residents of the region. In the war of 1948, most Bedouin fled or were expelled, with only 11,000 remaining. From 1948-1966 the Bedouin lived under Israeli military rule and were restricted to a reservation-like “Siyag” (fence) in the northeastern, least fertile  part of the Negev that makes up only 10% of the region.  Former Bedouin lands were appropriated by the state.

Similarly, employment opportunities as even semi-skilled laborers were curtailed until recently.  Adva found that Bedouin residents of the Negev have unemployment rates of 34.7% (compared to 11.6% for Jewish residents of the region).  Due to the lack of infrastructure, there are limited economic opportunities within Bedouin communities.  Although they are among the poorest localities in Israel, the Bedouin communities do not have “Development Area A” status, which would offer tax breaks to investors.

In addition to the environmental hazards of inadequate water and sewage treatment, Bedouin communities face additional hazards due to Romat Hovav, located in the heart of Bedouin communities, which consists of 17 chemical factories and the national toxic waste dump site, to which 70,000 tons of waste are shipped annually. (Israel Union of Concerned Scientists). The Health Ministry found highly elevated rates of cancer in the region and theorized that Ramat Hovav is the culprit (Haaretz, October 9, 2007). Rates of miscarriage, asthma, sleep apnea and birth defects are also elevated in Bedouin communities (UN OCHA, November 2007).

Development Politics

Israel's policies toward the Bedouin have been based around demographic concerns and land usage policies.  The state has consistently tried to increase Jewish settlement of the Negev at the expense of Bedouin people.  For example, Israel continues to hold the provision of basic services such as water, sewage, and electricity, which are their rights as citizens, as a trade off for Bedouin giving up their land rights.

The newest manifestation of these policies is “Blueprint Negev,” the Jewish National Fund's $600 million development plan to bring an additional 250,000 people (especially targeting Jews from English speaking countries) into the Negev by 2013.  The plan prioritizes new services and infrastructure for new immigrants over improving basic services for the people who already live here.