In a recent Times of Israel essay, one of Israel’s pioneering environmental leaders, Alon Tal, offered a sobering assessment of the environmental record of Israel’s current government. His conclusion was stark: after four years, he struggled to identify a meaningful environmental achievement and saw instead a pattern of neglect, weakened institutions, and missed opportunities.

On much of that analysis, I agree. Israel remains far behind where it needs to be on climate action, renewable energy, biodiversity protection, and environmental governance. The challenges are real, and they are serious.

Alon Tal has spent decades helping build Israel’s environmental movement, and many of us working in conservation today stand on foundations that leaders like him helped create. Because I share many of his concerns, his article stayed with me.

But I found myself arriving at a different conclusion.

Not because the problems are smaller than he describes, or because environmental advocates can afford complacency. They are not, and we cannot.

I remain hopeful because I have spent the last several years watching the Society for the Protection of Nature in Israel (SPNI) continue winning, not always the large victories but often the small ones.

The kind of victories that protect a stream before it is polluted, a coastline before it is developed, a wildlife corridor before it is severed, or a planning process........

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)