An Ecological Comparison of Two Abandoned Heritage Orchards in Northern Israel

Eli Ashkenazi, Ido Wachtel, Guy Bar-Oz, Roy Marom and Liora Kolska Horwitz

From Heritage, 8: 76.

This study documented two relict traditional Palestinian orchards; one was abandoned following the 1948 war when the farmers were exiled to Lebanon and the second was tended by farmers up until the early 1970s. The orchards examined are located in two different Mediterranean phytogeographic regions, one in the hilly Upper Galilee and the other on the slopes of Mount Carmel in the hinterland of the Mediterranean coast. We found differences in the species composition and spatial layout of trees in each orchard which followed the dictates of the geographic settings, demonstrating the farmer’s knowledge of their environment. We discuss the importance of these orchards as part of the heritage horticultural systems of the region and explore possible measures that can be taken to preserve this unique historical arboricultural landscape and ways to empower local, traditional knowledge in promoting awareness for the conservation and preservation of heritage horticulture.

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Qadas village. (a) Aerial photo of the village in 1945 (top) and with our mapped trees shown as yellow circles (bottom); (b) a close-up of a part of Qadas village in 1945 (top) and an aerial photo from 2019 (bottom) showing our mapped trees as pink circles (GIS maps Ido Wachtel).

An old and extremely large olive tree from the Wādī al-‘Ein orchard (December 2023).