Gotta love New York. The never-ending nightlife, the great food, the rich cultural diversity, and the green puddles on the street corners.
Wait…what?
You know you’ve seen them. Probably stepped into them accidentally, much to your own chagrin. Wouldn’t it be nice to get rid of those things?

Much has been made of the issue of environmental protection of late. We talk all the time now about global warming, hybrid cars, alternative sources of energy, and all of that. With gas prices fluctuating and in the aftermath of events like Hurricane Katrina, the environment is definitely a more central issue than ever before. That said, the question remains: how do we get people to care and actually do something different, instead of just talking? How do we make environmental protection something people actually care about and do something about?

Ask the Israelis. Back in 1953, only five years after the founding of the state, the Society for the Protection of Nature in Israel (SPNI) was founded, an organization that has become central to protecting Israel’s natural resources and landscape in the 53 years since its inception. What’s so incredible about the SPNI, though, is not that they’re simply an organization that protects the beautiful landscape of Israel. They’ve actually made it popular.

SPNI has become a central part of life in Israel. They’re not just crazy tree-huggers – they are the ones who preserve the hiking trails that run through every valley and over every hill in Israel. They are the ones who run popular overnight summer camps for kids, arrange walking tours in Israel’s major cities, and even teach seminars at Israeli schools. It is estimated that SPNI’s programs reach one out of every six Israelis – which means that, rather than being ‘that environmental group’, they are a part of people’s lives.

When you go camping in Israel (and Israelis love to camp), the trails you hike on are managed by SPNI. The campgrounds are guarded by them, the maps are drawn by them. They’ll tell you where the best lookouts are, where the rarest animals can be seen, where the oldest ruins are hidden. They’ve written the books – literally – on nature in Israel, and done so in a way that makes it interesting and cool. Every Israeli kid has spent at least a dozen nights scattered through his childhood on an SPNI trip, curled up in a sleeping bag while dipping cookies in chocolate melted over a mini-burner on the beach, listening to ghost stories being told by the SPNI counselors.

So while everybody continues to talk about protecting the environment, maybe SPNI has figured out how to actually do it: don’t make it an ‘issue’. Make it a part of people’s lives. Make it interesting. Make it cool.

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