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Friday, January 29, 2010

Happy Tu B'Shvat! Plant a tree in Israel!

YNet has some good stats on the eve of Tu B'Shvat the traditional Jewish New Year for trees) from the Jewish National Fund:

Israel is the only country in the world which has more trees now than it did 100 years ago. In 1901, the year in which JNF was founded, Israel contained only 14,000 dunam (roughly 3,500 acres) of forest land altogether.

By 1980 the figure reached 556,000 dunam and currently Israel contains 855,663 dunam of forestry. JNF has planted over 240 million trees in its years of existence.

"Each year JNF plants an average of 15-20,000 dunam. The plating period is between October and the end pf March," Stenzler said.


61 times as much forest in Israel compared to 1901!

Go here or here to plant a tree yourself.