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Burning Forests, Rising Power: Towards a Constitutionality Process in Mount Carmel Biosphere Reserve

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Abstract

Powerful states and elites frequently manage protected areas with little or no concern for historic land uses, people, or governance practices, justified by ideologies that portray these areas as “pure nature” to be protected from humans. New international participatory platforms, such as the UNESCO Man and Biosphere Program, coupled with strategic active agency, have provided an opportunity for challenging the fortress model of conservation in Israel. We examine the change in Israel’s government ecological policies following its failure in managing the Carmel forests, whereby its bargaining power with the local Druze-Arab minority was significantly reduced, opening a window of opportunity for the Druze to take advantage of new UNESCO rules on local participation to create management institutions for the local forest commons.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Sakhnin College, PO Box 100, Sakhnin, Israel

    Ramez Eid

  2. Institute of Social Anthropology, University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland

    Tobias Haller

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  1. Ramez Eid
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Correspondence to Ramez Eid.

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Eid, R., Haller, T. Burning Forests, Rising Power: Towards a Constitutionality Process in Mount Carmel Biosphere Reserve. Hum Ecol 46, 41–50 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10745-018-9968-z

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