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About the project:

Project Description
The project launched by APN founders in 2001, involves replanting trees in Palestinian lands razed by Israeli bulldozers in areas where Jewish settlements and bypass roads are built/expanded in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip.
Approximately one million trees will be replanted in various locations, including olive, fruit and palm trees. The project will be run in five stages expected to be completed in 2007.

Background
Thousands of acres of Palestinian agricultural land have been razed over the years by Israeli bulldozers, families displaced and vital routes disconnected in the West Bank and Gaza strip as Israeli occupation authorities continue to build/expand Jewish settlements and bypass roads. Nearly 1,390,000 trees were uprooted in the years 2001-2005, most of them were olive trees. Israel’s building of the Apartheid Wall in the occupied West bank in recent years has swallowed/destroyed more Palestinian agricultural lands.

Objectives

• Replant olive and other trees in damaged Palestinian lands.

• Support Palestinian farmers and families through creating job opportunities to generate income for them.

• Help Palestinians hold on to their lands.

• Protect and preserve the environment.

• Spread awareness of Israel’s plans to expel Palestinians from their agricultural lands.

• Coordinate contacts internationally promoting the project through media campaigns and advocacy material.

Project Cost
The five-year project cost was estimated at five million dollars expected to be financed by donations.

 

 

Achievements
The project is being implemented in collaboration with the million tree campaign steering committee which comprises of: Arab for Protection of Nature (APN), The Palestinian Agricultural Relief Committees (PARC), Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia (ESCWA), Palestinian Ministry of Agriculture (MOA), United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), Welfare Association (WA), Union of Agricultural Work Committees (UAWC),
and The Global Network of Institutions Working on the Subject of Jerusalem.

So far, nearly 500,000 trees were planted in the years (2003-2006), as indicated in the following table:

 

Stages/Year	NO. of Trees
Stage 1	100,000 planted in 2003
Stage 2	100,000 planted in 2004
Stage 3	200,000 planted in 2005
Stage4/2006	100,000 planted in 2006
Stage 5/2007	300,000

The project will be run, following its completion in 2007, by a Palestinian committee comprising a number of civil society organizations which monitor Israeli measures of razing Palestinian agricultural lands and uprooting their trees.

MTC projects:

Bardala Gardens Project

Palm Trees Plantation Project

Jerusalem Villages Plantation Project:

With generous grant from Qatar Charity and in cooperation and coordination with Ahali-Centre for Community Development in Nezereth, APN has launched its new planting project in towns and villages at the north-west part of Jerusalem. The area has a population of 34000 and a total land of 13,700 dunums of which 5,600 dunums (41% of the total land) were isolated.

Ahali implements the project in cooperation with PARC and the Union of Agricultural Work Committees in Palestine. The project’s targeted area comprises of agricultural lands that are separated from their owners by the wall; and the plan is set to plant 800 dunums (i.e 14% of the isolated lands) with olive and fruit tree seedlings which will purchased from nurseries in Tolkarim and Qalqilya. The cost of planting each 100 dunums is estimated by US$ 15000 per year.

The project aims to consolidate farmers in their struggle to cling onto their isolated lands, protect these lands from confiscation and to combat poverty through creating stable income sources for the farmers and their families. The importance of this project stems from its contribution to providing solutions to the economic and social problems experienced by the Palestinian farmers as it helps to provide 35 stable job opportunities per year.

Reports:

Progress Report (2002-2004) 
Progress Report ( 2006)

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Project photos
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