Yatir Forest, IsraelA delicate breeze drifts through the sun-dappled understory of these spare, out-of-place woods, softening the heat of late July. Beneath the spindly Aleppo pines, spiny shrubs nestle among limestone boulders. The only sounds are the buzzing of insects and the occasional roar of a military jet.
In spring, though, following the winter rains, this place bursts with new life. Pink and yellow wildflowers carpet the forest floor; camels and horses graze in open meadows. Gazelles, hyenas, foxes, rabbits, fieldmice, lizards, and snakes all dwell in Yatir—a human-made oasis on the northwest edge of the Negev Desert, around 30 miles south of Jerusalem.
Planted in the 1960s by the Jewish National Fund (JNF), a non-profit land development agency that manages more than a
