Israeli groups demanded on Tuesday that the government take immediate action to counter the Palestinian Authority’s ongoing building on what is supposed to be a protected nature reserve.

“The Judean Desert has more concrete than mountain goats, a dubious achievement, courtesy of the Palestinian Authority,” charged the Regavim Movement, an NGO dedicated to the protection of Israel’s national lands and resources.

“We expect – we demand – substantial action to restore the fragile desert ecosystem, which has suffered too long from the Palestinian Authority’s rampant illegal construction,” the group said.

To illustrate how serious the problem is, Regavim released on Tuesday, together with the Gush Etzion and Har Hebron Regional Councils, a parody of National Geographic nature films that it called a “National Catastrophic” documentary, featuring “The Desert Block.”

Mimicking precisely the style of the famed series, it shows the desert landscape being destroyed by miles of roads, walls, and buildings, while the narrator talks of how the concrete “desert block knows no fear” and says the “conditions are ideal.” So “it grows wild,” constantly “invading new areas, striking roots of steel and stone” while being “sustained” by “a constant flow of money from around the world.”

The government has done nothing about this issue for years, despite the massive Palestinian encroachment on what is known as the “Wye-designated nature reserve,” which had been placed under PA jurisdiction in the 1998 Wye River Agreement that constituted the third part of the Oslo Accords.

Last June, the Cabinet formally decided to enforce the law to try to belatedly prevent at least part of the decimation of its unique ecosystem.

The first enforcement action was finally implemented last month, but only against illegal construction that had taken place since that decision.

Even then, no further action has been taken, although Regavim’s field coordinators quickly documented additional new development and construction work in the northern part of the reserve, as well as massive construction in the southern part, including road paving, electrical infrastructure, and construction of multi-story structures.

“There is no vacuum. Wherever Israeli authorities are absent, hostile elements fill the void,” said Moshe Shmueli, one of the coordinators. “After too many years of systematic destruction of the Judean Desert’s natural resources, there’s no time to lose – we must correct this immediately.”

Gush Etzion Regional Council head Yaron Rosenthal noted that environmental groups, which should naturally be at the forefront of such a struggle, have not come to their aid.

“The Judean Desert is being systematically destroyed by the Palestinian Authority, with little response from environmental groups,” he said. “We who cherish the desert and the nature, our environment, and the Land of Israel are committed to countering this damage and safeguarding our desert from further harm.”

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