Ramat Hanadiv’s Fuel‑break zone

The natural vegetation of Israel was affected by human activity for thousands of years. In the last decades, a conservation policy was imposed, which excluded most grazing and clearing activities. This policy resulted in an extensive recovery of the maquis, but caused the closing-up of open grasslands and shrublands, changing the composition of plant and animal communities and increasing fires frequency and intensity. 
 
One of the proposed mechanisms to cope with fire threat in Mediterranean dense woody vegetation, is the creation of “Fuel-break zones” to impede the spread of fires.
Such a fuel-break zone was established along Ramat Hanadiv Northern border in 1992, separating the nature park from the town of Zikhron Ya’akov.
Different levels of intensity and management practices are applied in different sections of the fuel break, as follows:
Intensive cattle grazing combined with manual clearing of all shrubs, cattle and goat grazing with or without woody vegetation thinning, goat grazing only and a control plot without any intervention.
Aleppo pines at all sized are routinely removed from all plots as part of a fire management regime.
All plots are being monitored as part of Ramat Hanadiv’s LTER program.