Credit: (MARCUS YAM / LOS ANGELES TIMES Via Prism)
Preserving olive trees is a matter of Palestinian identity and resistanceOlive trees are central to Palestinian life and symbolize the community’s struggle for liberation. Over the past few decades, Israel's occupation has targeted these trees which are everywhere. Almost half of all the farmed land in the occupied territories of the West Bank and Gaza is planted with olive trees. Prism reports that since 2000, the Israeli military has intensified its attacks on Palestinian agricultural lands, uprooting and destroying three million olive and fruit-bearing trees, severely impacting 100,000 Palestinian families who rely on them for income. The outlet’s climate and environmental justice reporter Ray Levy Uyeda writes that the Israeli military will also frequently burn and cut down trees, fill wells with cement, destroy water lines, and provide settlers with weapons. Climate change and devastation have also impacted groundwater use and availability in the Eocene Aquifer — one of the major groundwater basins in parts of the West Bank — making it hard for plants to grow in proper conditions.
The attacks are deliberate and devastating, says Mariam Al Jaajaa, general manager of The Arab Group for the Protection of Nature. The nonprofit group seeks to enhance the Arab region’s sovereignty over food and natural resources, particularly in areas affected by war, conflict and occupation. “It’s breaking the Palestinian spirit because olive trees hold such a significance to Palestinian culture,” said Jed Pacheco, an organizer with SUNY Albany’s Students for Justice in Palestine chapter in another piece published in Prism.
Due to ongoing violence, Al Jaajaa says Palestinian farmers in the West Bank have lost $11 million in revenue from the 2 million olive trees that weren’t picked during the harvest. This also contributes to desertification, making it difficult to replant trees and support life on arable land.
As an act of resistance against Israel's settler-colonial project, Al Jaajaa’s group launched a campaign in 2001 to plant one million trees in Palestine. Since then, they’ve planted nearly three million.
Credit: Humane Society of Western Montana via Native News Online
A tribal community health initiative targets “rez dogs”
On the Rocky Boy Indian Reservation in Montana, the Indian Health Service (IHS) and the Humane Society of Western Montana (HSWM) have launched a program to vaccinate "rez dogs" (dogs on Indian reservations), to improve public health by reducing disease transmission and the risk of dog attacks, and supporting responsible pet ownership on reservations. “We are seeing such an increase in [the] population [of dogs]. It's a health issue,” says Bobbi J. Favel, an enrolled member of the Chippewa Cree Tribe and the tribe's director of natural resources. Native News Online reports the program trains and certifies community members to administer vaccines to dogs on the reservation. “[We're] making sure we don't have an outbreak of rabies or any other type of disease that could carry over to our youth.”
In many reservations across Indian Country, dogs of all shapes and sizes can be seen idly resting in parking lots or darting across roads. Some of these animals are stray, while others are cared for by the community, yet access to veterinary care is often limited. On the Rocky Boy Reservation, the nearest veterinarian is 25 miles away and the cost of preventative care, which can run up to $1,500 annually, is prohibitive for many residents on the reservation.
“On the reservation, taking your dog to get vet care is not something a lot of people think about,” Favel says.
Along with free clinics and vaccines provided by HSWM, the program will also begin offering microchipping this summer — a process in which a rice grain-sized electronic chip containing information about the animal and its owner is placed under an animal’s skin.
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As a writer who grew up in Haiti and holds a degree in Negotiation and Conflict Resolution from Columbia University, Ruth Dupiche uses her pen to challenge cultural taboos and spark meaningful conversations. In her latest piece for the Haitian Times, Dupiche focuses on the complexities faced by some members of the Haitian community who rely on religion and overlook the benefits of therapy in seeking mental health support → Credit: Haitian Times