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 | |  |  |  | | A haven on an avian highway | | In a tiny outpost at the desert's edge, a courageous Israeli ornithologist is fighting to keep intact one of nature's wonders – the world's greatest migratory bird highway. The work of Reuven Yosef, who was chosen as an Associate Laureate in 2000, has inspired the development of bird sanctuaries around the world. |
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Each northern spring an awesome aerial torrent of 500 million birds pauses at a tiny fleck of a sanctuary at Eilat in Israel, at the tip of the Gulf of Aqaba, en route from the heart of Africa to the vastnesses of Europe and Asia.
Many birds have flown non-stop from the Central Highlands of Ethiopia, devouring their own muscle and intestines marathon runners consume their bodies. When they sink to rest at Eilat, in southernmost Israel, close to the Egyptian and Jordanian borders, they are at the very limits of their endurance.
Without this precious stop-over on their ancient migratory path, most of the birds would never complete their journey. Without food from Eilat's lakes and vegetation, they would never rebuild their strength for an onward trek that, in individual cases, takes them as far as Wales in the west or the Bering Strait, at the extremity of Asia.
For 14 years a stoic, courageous and determined Israeli ornithologist, Dr Reuven Yosef, has fought with all the means at his disposal to keep intact this remaining claw-hold on survival for the world's migratory bird populations.
Flash floods, savage vandalism, a suicide bombing, landmines and relentless development are among the challenges Yosef faces in striving to hold open this threatened highway – or "flyway", as he calls it – of the natural world. If it closes, a major route will be sundered and many of the 280 migratory bird species of Europe, Asia and Africa using it will find life difficult or even impossible.
Seven years ago Dr Yosef's visionary International Birding and Research Centre Eilat (IBRCE) won praise from the Selection Committee of the 2000 Rolex Awards for Enterprise, which chose him as an Associate Laureate.
Developed from an old rubbish dump to include 64 hectares of lakes, wetlands, visitor facilities and natural vegetation to harbour birds, the centre is today acknowledged as one of the world's ornithological wonders, inspiring projects as far afield as Kenya, Tibet, China, Mongolia and North America.
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Yosef observing gulls inside the bird sanctuary in Eilat.
©Rolex / Eric Vandeville |
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The story of the IBRCE reflects the turbulent and uncompromising character of the region in which it is located. In the 1960s, Eilat was recognised as the crossroads on the avian highway between three continents, a natural funnel through which the birds of Europe and Asia pass in millions on their way to winter feeding grounds in sub-Saharan Africa. Of the three great migratory routes – over Gibraltar in Spain, across the Straits of Messina and down the Rift Valley from Turkey to Kenya, Eilat is the largest and most important.
A birding station was established there in the 1980s, an era which also heralded rapid and dramatic change for the area.
The sleepy coastal settlement of Eilat, hemmed in by the harsh Arava and Negev deserts and the arid mountains of Sinai, began to reshape itself as a tourist centre, drawing visitors to the coral reefs and crystal waters of the Red Sea. Gradually the dry salt marshes fringing the sea succumbed to a concrete contagion of hotels, promenades and marinas, now drawing over a million tourists a year. A strip of wasteland lying between the town and the Jordanian border to the east, beneath the smoky thunder of low-flying passenger jets, became a rubbish tip. Nobody wanted it, except a keen-eyed Indian-born ornithologist, Reuven Yosef, who saw its pivotal significance to the wildlife of the planet.
Young Reuven had grown up in a family that loved and respected wild animals. His great-uncle established India's reserve for the Asiatic Lion, but he himself was fascinated by birds, dreaming of studying them and trying to understand their mysterious ways. One of the earliest questions that occurred to the boy – why do shrikes impale their prey? – later became the subject of his Master's thesis, in which he revealed that this behaviour was a form of courtship, the male bird seeking to impress the female with evidence of his prowess as a provider.
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Arriving in Israel as a 17-year-old imbued with Zionist ideals, he joined the Israeli Army and saw active service as an officer in one of its elite fighting units. Even in the heat of conflict, with bullets flying, he insisted his men treat wounded birds found on the field of battle. "My men didn't necessarily agree, but they humoured me," he recalls.
Wounded himself and invalided out of the army, Yosef took up his studies as an aspiring ornithologist at Ben Gurion University and then at Ohio State University in the United States, carrying out field research at the Archbold Biological Station in Florida. While there he was contacted by Shmulik Taggar, deputy mayor of Eilat and a keen naturalist, and Professor Berry Pinshow of Ben Gurion University, who invited him to set up a nature reserve on scientific principles that would also enhance Eilat's appeal to visitors.
Yosef was delighted, both at the chance to help protect bird migration in a world where it faced growing pressures from human activity, but also at the opportunities for scholarship the site presented – sampling and measuring each year an astonishing cross section of the world's avifauna.
Of the 120,000 hectares of salt marshes that once sustained billions of birds on their migratory journey, only a few hundred remained. The land was contaminated by mining activities extending back almost 3,000 years. The rest of the land was occupied by the rubbish tip, filled with "heaven-knew-what".
Raising US$1.5 million from friends and supporters, Yosef acquired 64 hectares from the Eilat Municipality in 1994. Over the years that followed, he begged soil from earthmoving contractors to bury the old tip and to landscape his sanctuary, obtained nutrient-rich effluent from the local sewage works to water its vegetation, and took saline water from the local saltworks to build a salt lake stocked with brine shrimp for the wading birds. He also piped fresh water from the city desalination plant for a freshwater lake.
Gradually the sanctuary took shape, a haven to the exhausted airborne travellers. And with the birds came people – scholars from the ends of the earth to study the unending avian throng, as well as 100,000 visitors a year to witness one of nature's marvels and 60,000 wide-eyed schoolchildren to learn about a phenomenon that, without great care, their own children may never see.
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Yosef ringing a rufus bushchat. Some 300 species of migrating birds transit through Eilat.
©Rolex / Eric Vandeville |
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Yosef's oasis also drew the eyes of predators. Not the five million birds of prey which haunt the flyway, but the two-legged, human variety. Developers were quick to spot an area of greenery and pleasant lakes that still lacked a concrete jungle. When their demands for this valuable new real estate were rebuffed, some developers turned to rougher measures. Anonymous threats came by telephone. Vehicles and equipment were wrecked. Jenny, the Yosef family dog, was found hanging from her chain. One night the building used by the ornithologists to band and record the birds went up in flames. Another night, the reserve was ploughed up by an earthmover. Angry yet determined, Yosef rebuilt his office using fireproof materials and restored the damaged landscape.
Greed and vandalism have stalked work at Eilat since the centre opened. Recently, with real estate values climbing, it has surged anew. Gates and fences have been torn down and equipment stolen, including computers holding years of precious records. Yosef has few doubts who is responsible. "This is very directed," he says. "It isn't random or senseless. It has a purpose behind it. We lodge our complaints with the police and then we hear nothing. Finally there is a message saying the investigation has been closed for lack of public interest."
Reuven Yosef may be a bird scientist, but he is also a warrior, a rock climber and a survivor as hardy as the landscape he guards. "The developers don't appreciate how precious this tiny piece of land really is. They say it is wasted on birds. They think birds can always go somewhere else. They'd rather see a string of hotels or a motocross speedway. They do not care."
He points to Eilat's coral reefs and waters, once a magnet for visitors but now succumbing to the same hunger for short-term profit as pollution and overuse degrade them. He is resolved the same will not happen to this critical patch of habitat for migratory birds. And he draws hope from the fact that, from all over the world, calls come in seeking advice on how to establish and run similar sanctuaries.
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A squacco heron being released by Yosef and some of the centre’s volunteers.
©Rolex / Eric Vandeville |
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Part of the sanctuary. The birds that stop near Eilat are crucial for ecosystems in Asia and Europe.
©Rolex / Eric Vandeville |
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And even in Eilat there are some signs of hope. "I see a change in local community attitudes here," Yosef says. "People are not so opposed to bird sanctuaries as they once were. That is encouraging. Ecotourism is starting to take a stronger hold." Most of the visitors are Israelis. European and American ecotourists tend to give the region a wide berth with some cause: in 2006 a suicide bomber blew himself up not 100 metres from Yosef's door.
In February 2006, 23 millimetres of rain fell, far out in the Arabian desert. The resulting flash-flood thundered down the dry wadis that debouched on the birding centre, filling in the lakes, erasing visitor trails and introducing a new peril – landmines from a washed-out minefield.
Yosef's response to the flood was once again to regroup and rebuild. The lakes were dug out and a new drainage network built. Unbelievably, a second "once-in-50-years" flood occurred within a year, putting the new system to the test. "It worked beautifully," he says with satisfaction.
Still the birds come in their millions, both rare and plentiful species, but the discerning eyes of Yosef and his fellow scientists notice disturbing differences. The IBRCE has accumulated 22 years of data on bird migration, based on trapping, measuring and banding thousands of individuals every year. In a major global project this data is being correlated with information gathered by the U.S. National Aeronautical and Space Administration (NASA). It is revealing changes in the birds' migratory patterns, weight and physical condition – indicators of the stress that climate change is starting to exert on the world's avian population.
As deserts spread, human land occupancy expands, climates warm and ocean currents change, the Worldwide Fund for Nature estimates that between 38 and 72 per cent of bird species may be facing extinction by the end of this century.
At Eilat, the passerines are fewer with each succeeding year. Many species are losing weight, raising concern for their ability to survive the ordeal of migration. Numbers of endangered birds like corncrakes and wrynecks are declining steadily.
"Some birds are migrating earlier, some later," Yosef says. "This is of concern because if they fail to synchronise with the main food source at their destination, they can miss their breeding season." Among human activities, farms and cities are the greatest killers – pesticides, powerlines, skyscraper windows, domestic cats and vehicles exact a horrifying toll on the world's migratory birds.
In studying the resilience of birds to these pressures and their physical condition during the heavy challenge of migration, researchers at IBRCE are gleaning fundamental knowledge about how birds conserve and use energy which may help to protect them in future.
The 64-hectare sanctuary represents a minuscule perch for half a billion birds to roost on twice a year, and Yosef has been in close negotiation with Jordanian authorities across the border who are offering an adjacent area nearly three times the size. All that holds the new project back, he says, is the US$500,000 needed to develop it.
Reuven Yosef says the Rolex Award he received in 2000 has been of great value in leveraging support for the centre, which has recently been made a field station of Ben Gurion University. The Award has helped to raise both funds to deal with the succession of blows that IBRCE has endured, and international awareness of its work in studying and shielding so many of the world's bird species from extinction.
Were migratory birds to disappear, he explains, the insects they feed on would take a vast toll on humanity's crops and food supply. We need birds for our own future, too – as well as for theirs.
Text: JULIAN CRIBB
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Dr Reuven Yosef
Director
International Birding & Research Center in Eilat
P.O. Box 774
Dor-Eilot Station
88000 Eilat
Israel
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