Bustan

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Bustan (Arabic and Hebrew for "fruit garden") is a joint Israeli-Palestinian non-profit organization of eco-builders, architects, academics, and farmers who promote environmental and social justice in Israel/Palestine. It uses tactics such as non-violent direct action and lobbying to improve the quality of life for marginalized populations that live in the region, most notably the Bedouin of unrecognized villages in the Negev desert of southern Israel. Bustan is an active part of the Together Forum, and works in partnership with the Regional Council of Unrecognized Villages (RCUV).

Bustan cultivates sustainable models to promote fair allocation of clean public resources. BUSTAN strives to present sustainable and replicable models for a healthy paradigm of development that serves both Jewish and Arab populations by promoting stewardship in the face of strident political wars over ownership of public resources.

As a Jewish-Arab movement for fair resource allocation, Bustan seeks to transform the excess of unsustainable consumption patterns into resource access for marginalized populations. We connect citizens with cost-cutting green technologies in order to spark consciousness of the wider benefits of sustainable living. The experience of self-reliance in lieu of waiting for government assistance is often a first step towards catalyzing renewal and social change.

Bustan's Focus BUSTAN is a Solution-Oriented Environmental Justice Organization. BUSTAN exposes key environmental justice struggles, and presses for government and corporate accountability by catalyzing strategic community action. BUSTAN facilitates innovative projects to build/plant community infrastructure. Our projects merge traditional knowledge with modern green technology, and are vital until systemic solutions are legitimated in the Israeli Courts and comprehensive decisions are fully-implemented on the ground. BUSTAN is one of the only grassroots organizations with the technical know-how to advance cost-effective, replicable models for a sustainable form of development that is culturally appropriate, for both Jewish and Arab populations.

BUSTAN sees sustainability in both social and environmental terms. Today, we are fighting a war over a Holy Land, while destroying it in the process. BUSTAN examines issues of environmental degradation and disappearance of the rural landscape as a by-product of the continued territorial war. We examine the social and environmental impact of development on the people and the land in the region. It involves placing the reciprocal questions of resource exploitation and resource allocation at center, particularly in the area referred to as "The Last Frontier."

Bustan sees sustainability in both political and environmental terms. Although environmental concerns are continually relegated to the bottom of the priority list in the face of the security issues of the State, BUSTAN sees them as vital and integral to the future of the state. We promote an ideology of looking at the implications of exploiting, over-developing, and over-settling this land. Until we can address the existing strain on resources with which Israel already contends, until we can conceive of radical new ways to accommodate the region's current inhabitants without further degrading and deteriorating the health of its people - we should not be considering yet more unsound development which falls into the status quo mold. Ultimately, this will lead to a heightened struggle for resources, leading to more conflict, thus exacerbating the violence between the Jewish and Arab peoples.

Bustan challenges the forced displacement of rural culture. BUSTAN is fully aware of the cultural sensitivities around ‘resuscitating traditional wisdom,’ and ‘preserving indigenous knowledge.’ Jews and Arabs can both teach and learn from the ways the original inhabitants of Israel/Palestine answered food, energy, shelter and water needs using the most readily accessible materials. There is a need to garner the best of traditional wisdom and merge them with the indisputable benefits of renewable technologies.

We Put Funding Into the Field, Not the Office. All of our work reflects our emphasis on minimizing our organizational consumption and our ecological footprint. On principle, to date, all of the materials we use in our office and field work are salvaged, recycled and re-used. Our staff uses public transportation or car-pools.

Bustan works for the common Jewish and Arab interests. Working beyond the limitations of the 'Peace Industry' – which in monopolizing funds and energy to promote Jewish-Arab encounters effectively assuages the guilt of those in power and tokenizes marginalized populations – we are interested in efforts which promote genuine convergence around Jewish and Arab interests. Bustan seeks to identify and work towards common goals around the necessity of equitably sharing land, water, and energy. Our work is intrinsically based on an acknowledgment of the inequities between the sides and acts as a vehicle for challenging the way public resources are shared and divided among us as inhabitants of the land. We see the question of resource allocation as the fundamental core issue upon which our future health as individuals and peoples rely.

Where Bustan Works: Bringing the Margins to the Core Greening, not Blackening, the Desert Focusing on the most marginalized communities in the region, since 1999 BUSTAN's focus has been on the poorest communities in the largest yet most peripheral region of the country – the Negev/Naqab Desert. People residing in this triangle of land share some 2.5% of the Negev/Naqab with Israel's nuclear reactor, 22 agro and petro-chemical factories, an oil terminal, closed military zones, a munitions plant, an oil terminal, multiple quarries, a toxic waste incinerator, cell phone antennae, a power plant, several airports, a prison, and two rivers of open sewage. This as an area where the poorest communities suffer the highest infant mortality rates, the highest unemployment and school drop-out rates, living in the most peripheral region of the country.

Work to Reduce the Isolation of the Negev Bustan chooses to work in the Negev – among those most marginalized and poorest communities in the most peripheral region of the country -- because we are convinced that in a country as small as Israel/Palestine, it is not possible to pretend that one can simply dump the rotting remnants of affluent consumer culture, the waste and effluent left over at the end of the process of production and consumption, next to those living at the margins of society. We can strive to bury our toxic remnants at the peripheries, but it will come back to haunt us. In Israel/Palestine, we are all impacted by the results of unsustainable living. BUSTAN's members and staff hail from all over the country. Our aim is to create a network of people through the Negev, the region, and the world whose eyes are steered to the Negev, and who can support the efforts of Jews and Arabs who live and work together in the desert.

A sustainable Negev is a place where traditional building and planting practices in a strongly self-determined desert culture are merged with modern green appropriate technologies in order to minimize the impacts of urbanization, overpopulation, and over-consumption. A sustainable Negev is a place where workers have access to safe workplaces in sync with environmental justice principles. A sustainable Negev is a place where the economic and health needs of residents are regarded as reciprocal. A sustainable Negev is a place where the ties of all peoples to this international heritage site are respected.