From draining the Hula wetlands to the planting of non-native mono-culture trees to the unsustainable development of land, Keren Kayemet L'Yisrael has had a blemished record on the environment throughout its history. The Green Zionist Alliance is working to change that by putting the environment back on the agenda of the KKL. With a 650-million-shekel annual budget and responsibilities for forestry, stream restoration, aquifer development and a range of environmental infrastructures, the KKL, with the support and leadership of the GZA, has the opportunity to become the leading sustainable-development agency in Israel.

Beginning in 2002, through a partnership with Mercaz Olami, the Green Zionist Alliance has been able to appoint GZA members in Israel to the KKL board of directors. Our first two KKL board representatives were GZA co-founder Dr. Alon Tal — who also founded the Israel Union for Environmental Defense as well as the Arava Institute for Environmental Studies — and Dr. Eilon Schwartz, the executive director of the Heschel Center for Environmental Learning and Leadership.

Alon and Eilon were subsequently appointed to head the then-newly established Sustainable Development Subcommittee. Together, they created position papers that established new KKL policies for sustainable forestry, river restoration, water reservoirs and public participation. They pushed the KKL to declare nature reserves in Nes Tsiona. They convinced the KKL to join the campaign to save thousands of acres of woodlands by moving parts of the trans-Israel highway into tunnels. They  took an active role in the KKL's efforts to combat desertification internationally. And they also became leaders on social-justice issues by helping to spearhead a new campaign to make KKL parks handicap accessible.

After the 2006 elections, Dr. Orr Karassin, co-founder of Green Course, joined Alon and Eilon as GZA representatives on the KKL board of directors, and she was appointed to chair the Sustainable Development Subcommittee and serve on the Land Development Committee, which oversees forestry policy and all land-development activities. After starting an initiative to “green” the internal operations of KKL, Orr was appointed to chair the committee overseeing the improvement of KKL’s environmental performance.

Alon was appointed co-chair of the Land Development Committee, where he changed funding priorities to expand the forestry budget and make afforestation the top KKL budgetary priority. Alon used his new position to toughen environmental standards for determining the location of KKL wastewater reservoirs. Under Alon's leadership, the Land Development Committee maintained continuous oversight to ensure the sustainability of forestry practices in Israel. Additionally, the committee oversaw evaluation of a new carbon-sequestration policy and increased its investment in forestry research, including support for the Weitzman Institute’s carbon-assessment project in the Yatir Forest. At Alon’s insistence, for the first time the KKL included bike paths as a permanent annual budget item. Subsequently, a new KKL initiative was matched and tripled by the government — resulting in 60 million shekels being invested in bike paths nationally, including the new Trans-Israel Bike Trail and the Kinneret Circumference Trail.

Alon also proposed a plan to convert KKL buildings into solar-power generators: Since Israeli law requires the national electric company to purchase solar energy produced during the day from small solar generators, within only a few years rooftop solar panels can pay off the costs of installing them. After that, they would become generators of revenue, which in turn could be used to install solar panels on more rooftops of KKL buildings.

Through the leadership of the GZA's representatives, the KKL has been helping the environment of developing nations in Africa. Alon initiated a cooperative project with the Agahozo Shalom Youth Village in Rwanda where KKL is supporting afforestation activities for the first time on the African continent.

Orr has been heading a new committee to oversee KKL's policies concerning academic scholarship and research fellowships. Under her leadership, hundreds of thousands of shekels in fellowships from the KKL were directed to support environmental training. Additionally, Orr and Alon sit on the committee that is overseeing a new one-million-dollar environmental-fellowship program funded by Jewish National Fund of Australia. Most of the research projects focus on biodiversity and open-space management.

Orr also initiated the participation of KKL's United Nations climate-change negotiations, and in 2007 she headed the KKL delegation to the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change in Bali. Orr has also been instrumental in pushing the KKL to enter into new environmental projects such as solar power; she was part of the committee that endorsed the first KKL-funded solar-power project in Israel.

In October 2009, Rabbi Yoav Ende replaced Eilon on the KKL board and also took over Eilon's committee responsibilities.

In December 2009, Orr headed the KKL-JNF delegation to the United Nations Conference on Climate Change in Copenhagen. And in January 2010 Orr was appointed as the first chairwoman of the KKL environmental-management committee. In that capacity, Orr will develop a strategic plan for greening the internal work of KKL that will backed by funding from the KKL budget. Because of the coalition agreement at the 36th World Zionist Congress in June, 2010, the GZA and Mercaz lost one of their seats on the KKL board and Yoav left the board. In consolation, the GZA and Mercaz were awarded the chairmanship of the land-development committee, and the GZA appointed Alon to the position.

Although there remains much work to be done, the Green Zionist Alliance continues working toward our goal of making the KKL a shining green example for Israel and the world — by making the KKL greener every day.