Hotel Presentation - English

?What is preferable

…To admit a mistake ?or to actually make one …

In this beautiful place, on the margins of the Timna Valley in the Arava Desert, 20 km north of Eilat, a tourism zone is about to be constructed, with 4 hotels and two theme parks

on an area of over 300 dunams (30 hectares), with an invest.ment of about a $100 million

?Why ?For what ?For whom

20 minutes away from the Timna Valley there are over 10,000 hotel rooms in Eilat!

History: When the Timna Valley was divided among the local administative bodies about 15 years ago, the "Hevel Eilot“ Regional Council demanded the area between Sasgon Hill (at right in the photo) and Michrot Mountain (centre) in order to establish a hotel. The Nature Reserve Authority reluctantly .agreed so that the other areas would be declared a nature reserve

The demand to build a hotel stemmed from the fear that there may not be enough economic activity to support the kibbutzim. Nowadays, local politicians pin high hopes on this tourism zone, which is !supposed to be a catalyst for the development of the Arava. The cause is worthy, but the price is not The nature reserve authority agreed to give up an area of rare natural value, simply because the kibbutzim had the clout: they are the people who live in the area, they were the first modern inhabitants of the Arava, they are the local authorities. In an area of such sparce population, everyone knows everyone and everyone works with everyone. There is no opposition. .In fact, there weren’t even any environmentalists active at that time .As time went by, the entrepreneurs arrived, the people with the money

Kibbutz Elifaz

Blue marks the area of the proposed project to be built by the Igra Group from Eilat, one of the owners of Herod’s Hotel. The tourism zone blocks the passage between 3 sandstone .mountains The National Israel Trail (in red), which passes through the most beautiful areas of the .country, will have to be detoured This area, which is now natural open space, will be .electrically fenced off to keep out wild animals

:And this is what they plan to build in the heart of the desert (Click for next slide)

Mt. Michrot

Sasgon Hill

The official stand of the Nature and Park Authority is that it’s tolerable, because the plans have been legally approved, and because the "hotel will be ‘green’". However, hotels in this part of the desert, even if they are confined to 2-3 storeys, cannot possibly be "green". Bulldozers and cement trucks simply don’t belong next to magnificent mountains of virgin sandstone, no matter how beautifully the landscaping has been planned, or how carefully the project will be The only thingThe green about project is the implemented. only thingthis green about this project is the $103 million that will be invested in it, and the hundreds of millions of dollars in profits that will be exploited from this .landscape in the years to come

?What’s more important The law of the land? ?Or the land itself

Who does the desert actually belong to? ?Are we entitled to do whatever we want with it

.Let's have a look at the Timna region for a moment .It already bears almost every type of human activity

Agriculture

Hotel ?Complex

Kibbutz

For-Profit Park

Transport Corridor Mining

Recreation Area

Sand Quarries

Heavy Industry

Sewage Ponds km to 20 Eilat

Airport (Planned)

Shown here is only a small part of the heavy damage that has been inflicted so far as a result .of human activity in the Timna area lowering level of the water table, desiccation of acacia trees

natural area turned into an intensively commercialized zone of human activity

overburden dumps (mining waste), enormous openpits

elimination of a unique habitat: the SamarElifaz Dunes

industrial sewage, sulphur, acids & heavy metals

km to 20 Eilat

Here are other possible locations for the tourism zone, in areas that are less :environmentally sensitive

Park Entrance

Manmade Lake

km to 20 Eilat

Today almost everybody agrees that draining the Hula Lake was a mistake. However, it is easier to mock past failures than to cope with the challenges of the present and of the future. Building 4 hotels and a water theme park that includes 2.5kilometers of water canals in the middle of a desert nature reserve is not a lot more logical than draining a lake in the middle of the Galilee. One of the differences is that, by this point, we should have become wiser: to remember that nature is not infinite, and that life in this uniquely beautiful area demands an extra cautionary approach. The proposed tourism zone in Timna is a grave error. It is not easy to admit a mistake, and the bigger the mistake, the harder it is. On the other hand, do we simply proceed without reassessing or rethinking?

.

It is still not too late to stop the bulldozers, before this grave error turns into an enormous blunder

?So what can we do Sign a petition to freeze this plan until other, .1 less destructive alternatives are discussed. http//:www.postool.com/petition.php?user=timnahotelpetition

2. Forward this e-mail 3. Send an e-mail to the Hevel-Eilot Regional Council and to the Igra group, so they can . reconsider the location of the project Further Details • • • •

website for the Initiative to Halt the Hotel Complex at Timna -http://www.freewebs.com/timna website for the Hevel Eilot Regional Council http://www.eilot.org.il website for the Igra Group http://www.igragroup.com Contact us by e-mail: [email protected]