page_title: Negev Bedouin
section_title: Environmental issues
hierarchical_section_title: Negev Bedouin / Environmental issues
caption_attribution_description: English: Cities in Israel עברית: תמונה של פארק רהט הוא נמצא במרכז העיר וחלק מכניסת המתנ"ס הקהלתי ., Original Image Name:פארק רהט וחלק מכניסת המתנ"ס, Notes:יישובי להבה, Location:רהט
context_page_description: The Negev Bedouin are traditionally pastoral nomadic Arab tribes living in the Negev region of Israel. The Bedouin tribes adhere to Islam.
  From 1858 during Ottoman rule, the Negev Bedouin underwent a process of sedentarization which accelerated after the founding of Israel. In the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, most resettled in neighbouring regions. Between 1968 and 1989, Israel built seven townships in the northeast of the Negev for the Bedouin population, with about half of them relocating to these areas. Others remained in unrecognized villages, and while the Israeli government has gradually recognized some of them and taken measures to improve infrastructure and basic services, the majority are slated for destruction with the population facing forced displacement, as laid out in the Prawer Plan. According to human rights organizations opposed to the plan, it discriminated against the Bedouin population of the Negev and violated the community's historic land rights. In December 2013, the plan was rescinded.
  The Bedouin population in the Negev numbers 200,000-210,000.
context_section_description: In 1979, a 1,500 square kilometer area in the Negev was declared a protected nature reserve, rendering it out of bounds for Bedouin herders. In conjunction with this move the Green Patrol, a law compliance unit was established that disbanded 900 Bedouin encampments and cut goat herds by more than a third. With the black goat nearly extinct, black goat hair to weave tents is hard to come by.
  Israeli environmental leader Alon Tal claims Bedouin construction is among the top ten environmental hazards in Israel. In 2008, he wrote that the Bedouin are taking up open spaces that should be used for park land. In 2007, Bustan organization disagreed with this contention: "Regarding rural Bedouin land use as a threat to open spaces fails to take into account the fact that Bedouin occupy little more than 1% of the Negev and fails to call into question the IDF’s hegemony over more than 85% of the Negev’s open spaces." Gideon Kressel has proposed a brand of pastoralism that preserves open spaces for rangeland herding.
  Wadi al-Na'am is located close to the Ramat Hovav toxic waste dump, and its residents have suffered from higher than average incidences of respiratory illnesses and cancer. Given the small scale of the country, Bedouin and Jews of the region share some 2.5% of the desert with Israel's nuclear reactors, 22 agro and petrochemical factories, an oil terminal, closed military zones, quarries, a toxic waste incinerator (Ramat Hovav), cell towers, a power plant, several airports, a prison, and 2 rivers of open sewage.
caption: Rahat park
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