Protecting the Land of Craters, Negev Highlands

Project Story

The Land of Craters is one of Israel’s most extraordinary desert landscapes. It covers approximately 2,981 square kilometers, about 13.5% of Israel’s land area, and includes Ramon Crater, the Large Crater, the Small Crater, the Arif craters, desert highlands, wadis, springs, dark-sky landscapes, rare habitats, and about 1,095 square kilometers of designated nature reserves.

In 1994, Israeli Government Decision No. 3497 formally recognized the Land of Craters as a region of unique national and international natural value. The decision marked a shift away from mining and quarrying and toward conservation, restoration, nature-based tourism, and sustainable regional planning. Yet the pressures that shaped the original decision have not disappeared. Today, the region is again under growing pressure from infrastructure corridors, oil pipelines, phosphate mining, industrial expansion, mass tourism development, military facilities, light pollution, and weak environmental enforcement.

Keshet NGO’s Environment & Development Department was created to protect this landscape through a community-led regional stewardship model. We do not treat each threat as an isolated campaign. We build long-term local capacity to monitor planning processes, identify threats early, mobilize residents and volunteers, work with planners, scientists and lawyers, engage national media, and influence decision-makers before irreversible damage occurs.

Our Mission

Our mission is to regenerate the relationship between people, planning, and desert landscapes in the Negev Highlands and the Land of Craters.

We work to protect open desert spaces, restore damaged landscapes, prevent ecological degradation, defend biodiversity, preserve geological and cultural heritage, and promote sustainable development rooted in local knowledge and public responsibility.

Regeneration, for us, means more than physical restoration. It means restoring public stewardship, rebuilding trust between communities and planning institutions, protecting landscapes before they are damaged, and ensuring that regional development strengthens rather than consumes the desert.

Background & Problem Statement

The Negev Highlands and the Land of Craters are among Israel’s last large open desert regions. Their ecosystems are fragile, slow to recover, and highly sensitive to physical disturbance, light pollution, contamination, and fragmented planning.

The region faces several converging threats:

• Oil infrastructure risks from EAPC pipelines and related infrastructure corridors.
• Phosphate mining near sensitive desert springs and nature reserves, including Ein Yarkam and Oron-Zin.
• Unsustainable tourism development in and around Ramon Crater.
• Light pollution that threatens the Ramon Crater dark-sky landscape.
• Industrial and infrastructure expansion in open desert spaces.
• Weak public participation and insufficient environmental safeguards in planning procedures.

These threats endanger rare habitats, desert wildlife, geological formations, hiking and tourism assets, local livelihoods, and the region’s long-term ecological identity. In many cases, damage to desert ecosystems cannot be quickly reversed. Prevention is therefore a core regeneration strategy.

Solution

Keshet has developed a regional community-led landscape stewardship model that combines monitoring, public mobilization, legal tools, expert knowledge, media work, and policy engagement.

Our work includes:

• Continuous monitoring of planning procedures and infrastructure proposals.
• GIS documentation and field-based evidence collection.
• Public campaigns that mobilize residents, hikers, guides, educators, activists, and tourism operators.
• Legal and planning objections, appeals, and petitions when needed.
• Coalition work with environmental NGOs, public agencies, scientists, planners, and lawyers.
• Direct engagement with local, regional, and national decision-makers.
• Field tours and public events that connect policy-makers to the landscape.
• The biennial Land of Craters Conference, which brings ministers, parliament members, mayors, professional officials, researchers, tourism actors, public agencies, and civil society into direct dialogue with the desert.

This model has already produced measurable results. Keshet helped advance the restoration of 80 hectares of abandoned quarry landscape north of Mitzpe Ramon, reduce private construction on the rim of Ramon Crater by 60%, reverse an approved overhead power-line project inside Ramon Crater, and contribute to a national policy shift for undergrounding power lines in open spaces and nature reserves.

Opportunity

The immediate opportunity is to turn our existing work into a clear public-facing regeneration story with measurable indicators, mapped sites, visual documentation, and stronger field evidence. This will allow Keshet to communicate impact more effectively, attract broader support, and accelerate current protection and restoration campaigns.

The funding would help us build the missing operational layer between grassroots action and long-term landscape regeneration: site mapping, impact documentation, public storytelling, GIS-based evidence, campaign materials, and donor-ready reporting.

This support would strengthen urgent current work against EAPC oil infrastructure risks, phosphate mining near Ein Yarkam and Oron-Zin, and unsustainable tourism development in Ramon Crater. It would also help us connect these campaigns into one coherent regional model for desert regeneration.

How We Regenerate

We regenerate by preventing damage before it occurs, restoring disturbed landscapes, and rebuilding the civic infrastructure needed to protect desert ecosystems over time.

Our regeneration model has four layers:

• Landscape protection: We monitor planning processes and intervene before open spaces, habitats, springs, dark skies, and geological assets are damaged.
• Restoration leverage: We use public campaigns, planning tools, and partnerships to move state bodies toward restoring damaged landscapes, as in the Mitzpe Ramon quarry restoration.
• Community stewardship: We mobilize residents, volunteers, hikers, educators, tourism operators, and regional activists to take responsibility for the landscapes they depend on.
• Policy change: We turn local campaigns into regional and national planning precedents, including changes in infrastructure policy and stronger environmental safeguards.

This approach recognizes that in desert ecosystems, regeneration begins with restraint: reducing disturbance, stopping avoidable harm, restoring damaged areas, and aligning development with the ecological limits of the landscape.

Tracking Impact

Keshet tracks impact through both quantitative and qualitative methods.

Quantitative indicators include:

• Hectares restored or rehabilitated.
• Hectares or square meters protected from harmful development.
• Number of planning objections, appeals, and legal interventions.
• Number of development plans amended, delayed, reduced, or cancelled.
• Public investment generated for restoration or environmental mitigation.
• Campaign reach, media coverage, petition signatures, and public participation.
• Number of field tours, public meetings, coalition meetings, and decision-maker engagements.

Qualitative indicators include:

• Changes in planning discourse and official policy language.
• Adoption of Keshet’s recommendations by planning bodies or public agencies.
• Strength of coalitions and public participation.
• Testimonies from residents, guides, educators, and local businesses.
• Field observations and expert assessments.

We also use GIS mapping, field photography, planning document analysis, legal review, media tracking, and follow-up on government and planning decisions. A key next step is to organize this information into a more systematic public reporting framework.

Our Experience

Keshet’s Environment & Development Department has operated continuously for more than a decade, with roots in environmental public campaigns dating back to 2008 and planning monitoring since 2010.

Key achievements include:

• Mitzpe Ramon quarry restoration: Following Keshet’s action, 80 hectares of abandoned quarry landscape north of Mitzpe Ramon were planned and restored through a public investment of approximately ILS 15 million.
• Ramon Crater power-line campaign: Keshet helped overturn an approved overhead power line in Ramon Crater. The line was undergrounded, pylons were removed in 2024, and land rehabilitation was completed in January 2025. This led to approximately ILS 60 million in local environmental investment and contributed to a national ILS 1.5 billion policy shift for undergrounding new power lines in open areas and nature reserves.
• Camel Hill campaign: Keshet reduced private construction on the rim of Ramon Crater by 60%, deleted 35 residential plots, and removed more than 20,000 sqm of planned construction from a sensitive area.
• Ramon Crater amphitheatre campaign: Keshet’s campaign helped cancel an ILS 5 million allocation for an amphitheatre planned inside the Ramon Crater Nature Reserve and advanced planning changes to prevent light and noise pollution.
• Land of Craters Conference: Keshet initiated the biennial Land of Craters Conference, connecting decision-makers, professional officials, researchers, environmental organizations, public agencies, tourism actors, and field knowledge.
• Current campaigns: Keshet is leading and supporting regional efforts against EAPC oil infrastructure risks, phosphate mining near Ein Yarkam and Oron-Zin, and unsustainable tourism development in Ramon Crater.

Keshet also manages and coordinates Midbar Kayma, a southern environmental network that maps threats, makes information accessible, and supports activists and organizations from Be’er Sheva to Eilat and the Dead Sea.