Good Water Neighbors: Identifying Common Environmental Problems and Shared Solutions
Publisher: EcoPeace Middle East
Date: 2007
Topics: Cooperation, Programming, Renewable Resources
Countries: Israel, Jordan, Palestine
During the year 2006, local residents, businesses, municipal representatives and other stakeholders from seventeen Jordanian, Palestinian and Israeli communities involved in the Friends of the Earth Middle East (FoEME), Good Water Neighbors Project, met on a regular basis to discuss and define the primary environmental concerns faced by their communities. With the assistance of a local planner hired by FoEME, community residents worked cooperatively to map out environmental threats and start developing first ideas that could constitute sustainable solutions.
This publication, the first in a series, is a reflection of the ongoing efforts made by FoEME’s Good Water Neighbor communities to overcome the environmental challenges they face with a particular focus on cross border solutions. Each community is developing a “Green Plan”, that details the environmental problems faced by each community and depending on the progress reached with in the community, identifies initial ideas for possible projects and initiatives that could improve the welfare of the neighboring residents and their shared environment. Over the next months FoEME will continue this process of public participation in planning and problem solving in an effort to raise envirinmental awareness and to further develop, and in some cases refine, the very creative project ideas born out of the GWN process.