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Palestine

Nine IPAs have been identified in Palestine; four have been confirmed and described as internationally important sites the remainder require further investigation.

Palestine is situated in South West Asia in the east of the Mediterranean basin. The targeted area (5800 square km) has 1600 vascular plant species, tremendously high plant diversity for such a small area. It has three biogeographical areas: Mediterranean, Irano-Turanian (semi-desert) and extreme desert. Many habitats present are associated with the climatic transition between Mediterranean, characterized by long, hot, rainless summers and relatively short, cool, rainy winters, and extreme desert. The Mediterranean landscapes include several kinds of forest, garrigue, scrubland and grassland, whereas the dry climate zone grows scattered shrub vegetation or desert-grassland in its wetter parts. In the more arid regions, the vegetation is confined to dry riverbeds and gullies and in some places is almost absent. The semi-desert belt (Transition) has higher diversity than other two areas. Here, the annual rainfall varies from 400mm to 200mm and the zone includes mostly low-grasslands and hardy forms of scrub with a flora mostly of Asian and Saharan origin. The preliminary red list of Palestine contains 298 vascular plant species, some of which are globally threatened.

Nine IPAs have been identified in Palestine. Four have been confirmed and described as internationally important sites, while the remainder require further investigation due to access difficulties and lack of capacity. Three IPAs contain single country endemics and all sites contain species that have very restricted distributions but cross adjacent borders for example Iris haynei in Palestine and Israel. The current distribution of many of these locally endemic species is not known.

The IPAs of Palestine are dominated by maquis (chaparral) vegetation – both dense and open, with wild pistachio Pistacia palaestina, mastic tree P. lentiscus, Palestine buckthorn Rhamnus palaestinus, Palestine oak Quercus calliprinos and Aleppo oak Q. boisseri, frequently interspersed with ancient olive groves. The softer leaved garrigue (phyrgana) with the rockroses Cistus incanus and C. salvifolious, Mediterranean smilax or sarsaparilla Smilax aspera; and many medicinal and aromatic species such as zaatar or Syrian marjoram Origanum syriaca, thyme-leaved savory Satureja thymbra and germander Teucrium spp. is found on some IPAs. Remnants of once dense carob forest (Ceratonia siliqua) occur on some sites and populations of Aleppo pine Pinus halapensis are found on parts of the more mountainous sites.

Threats to IPAs in Palestine

The IPAs in Palestine are threatened by cutting, grazing, occasional burning, habitat fragmentation and very high levels of unsustainable harvest of medicinal and aromatic plants. Wood cutting is largely domestic and wild plant harvesting is important for supplementing household incomes.

Coordinating organisation:

• Al Quds University

Contact:

• Banan Al-Sheikh