Yatir Forest
The Yatir Forest is a forest area on the southern slopes of Mount Hebron in Israel .
geography
The Yatir Forest is located on the northern edge of the Negev Desert and immediately south of the border between the Palestinian territories and Israel. This largest planted forest in Israel covers 30 km² and is located east of the settlement of Meitar and north of the city of Arad . The forest is located in an area with a dry climate and low humidity. At altitudes between 400 and 850 meters above sea level, an average of 300 to 350 mm of precipitation falls per year. The soils consist of calcareous rocks.
history
The Yatir Forest was laid out in 1964 by the Jewish National Fund Keren Kajemet Leisrael. The name Yatir is derived from the Old Testament ( Jos 21,13, 14 EU ), according to which this area was given to the children of Aaron , the tribe of Levi .
Since 1964, over four million trees have been planted in the Yatir Forest, mainly conifers such as Aleppo pine and Mediterranean cypress , but also deciduous trees such as terebinth , tamarisk , Chinese jujube , carob , olive , fig , eucalyptus and acacia .
Environment and tourism
The plantings, which also include vineyards and various types of shrub, have stopped the spread of desertification , the desertification, north of Beersheba . They reduce the evaporation of the rare precipitation and bind carbon dioxide from the air. The forest is part of NASA's FLUXNET project , which measures the exchange of carbon dioxide, water vapor and energy between the different ecosystems in the world and the atmosphere . At the Desert Research Institute in Sde Boker , the data from the various sources are evaluated under the direction of Dan Yakir from the Weizmann Institute for Science in Rehovot .
The Arava Institute for Environmental Research is doing experiments with date palms and vines near the Yatir forest and tries to establish these plants under very dry and salty conditions. The vines of the Yatir Winery , which have been planted and artificially irrigated since 1989 , result in a kosher, tannic red wine.
The Israel National Trail , a hiking trail from Galilee in the north to the Gulf of Eilat in the south, leads through the Yatir Forest from Meitar to Arad in the Negev desert.
archeology
In 1987, archaeological research was carried out in the Yatir Forest on a synagogue structure from the 4th to 7th AD, the Anim Synagogue , which was converted into a mosque after the conquest of Palestine by Muslim Arabs in the 7th century AD . Remains of mosaics were found under the stone floor, the outer walls still stood up to a height of approx. 4.5 meters and enclosed an area of 14.5 x 18.5 m. The structure faced north, towards Jerusalem . The two entrances to the east of the building still showed the lintels.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ^ Between the lines in: Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung from October 9, 2011, page 90
- ↑ Many small miracles in the desert in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung on February 1, 2015, page 42
Coordinates: 31 ° 20 ′ 33 ″ N , 35 ° 3 ′ 42 ″ E