A young group of local community leaders is stepping up to protect Jerusalem’s Judean hill and natural springs by strongly engaging with landscape planning processes and launching a unique citizen-national park, whose recreational activities are led by the group’s volunteers. Jerusalem’s surrounding hills and water springs are threatened by urban sprawl and road infrastructure as well as unsustainable agriculture edging closer to these fragile unique springs. The goal of the initiative is to achieve maximum protection of this area for generations to come. This is done through several pillars: first pillar is grassroots community engagement, second pillar is through working with policy-makers in the Israeli parliament in which the first achievement was successfully pushing to set up the “Jerusalem Hills lobby” in the Israeli Parliament composed of MP from all political ranges and the third pillar is through engaging with spatial planning processes on the local and national levels. #JerusalemHills #NatureLovers #climatechange #YouthLeadership
