Israel has protested its exclusion from an international conservationist conference to be held in Teheran next May. The International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCN) failed to invite or even to notify the three Israeli conservationist agencies that are officially members of the body and attended its meetings in prior years. The subjects on the agenda of the Teheran meeting include arid zones and the coral formations in the Red Sea, subjects to which Israel can contribute and about which it is anxious to learn more.
The Israeli bodies that are members of IUCN are the Nature Conservation Society, which is non-governmental; and two governmental agencies, the Natural Reserves Authority and the Environmental Protection Service. Azarya Allon, secretary of the Nature Conservation Society, cabled his group’s protest to the secretary of the IUCN, Girardo Bowdowsky, who is a Latin American Jew. The cable noted that the failure to invite Israel to the Teheran meeting was contrary to the non-political nature and spirit of the IUCN.
Israeli conservationists learned of the forthcoming meeting only by chance from circulars published at IUCN headquarters in Switzerland. The circulars contained a list of invited countries from which Israel was missing.
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