Monitoring the State of Nature in Israel

This chapter presents a case study of the Israeli National Biodiversity Monitoring Program (IBM) that encompasses a diverse set of ecosystems. Israel is located at a crossroads of Africa, Asia, and Europe. It sits at the southeastern tip of the Mediterranean ecosystem, bordering the vast Saharo-Arabian desert belt to its south and connected via the Rift Valley to the heights of Southeast Asia and the dry tropical ecosystems of East Africa. This combination of geography and ecology provides habitats for a remarkably high number of species, but the high densities of Israel's population and its rapid development, intensive land use, and climatic change threaten this biodiversity. A key component of a strategy to conserve biodiversity is a monitoring program that can identify the current state and trends—stable, declining, or thriving—of biodiversity in a country. The case study discusses the goals and implementation of the IBM, with particular attention to the challenges of replication and repeatability in this long-term monitoring program.