Among the highlights of the Sde Boker conference was a video-link presentation by Professor Jeffrey Sachs, director of the Columbia University Earth Institute and perhaps the world’s leading expert on (and advocate for) ending poverty. Sachs called for Israel to renew its commitment to assisting the developing nations of Africa that could benefit so much from the Israeli technologies and innovations for drylands agriculture and forestry.
The conference concluded with a plenary session announcing the establishment of an international network of desert research stations which, during its early stages, will be organized from the Blaustein Institutes for Desert Research. The unanimous call of the participants for greater commitment to assisting the developing world’s dryland nations in their ongoing efforts to protect their soil offers a message to Israelis and to the 35 countries represented: with ingenuity, collaboration and respect for ecological constraints, the drylands can be a source of economic opportunity and spiritual edification.
Israel is not only internationally newsworthy as a focal point for Middle Eastern turbulence. It would be a better world that acknowledged that the tiny Jewish state has tackled one of the planet’s key ecological problems and succeeded like no other country in the region. The Sde Boker conference was held a few hundred meters from David Ben-Gurion’s stark but powerful grave on the edge of the cliff overlooking the Zin wilderness. Yet it offered an even more compelling, living memorial to Ben-Gurion’s vision and ideals.