The head of the Jewish National Fund’s land development projects, Meir Shamir, has called for the establishment of 10 additional settlements in the Golan Heights over the coming decade. Shamir told newsmen this week that the JNF can lay the groundwork for the establishment of these settlements.
In the next 10 years, Shamir said, the JNF planned to prepare 50,000 dunams for cultivation, lay the infra-structure for another 10 settlements, drain another 15,000 dunams, and create reservoirs to store another 25 million cubic meters of water.
Surveying the JNF’s activities in the Golan over the past 10 years, Shamir highlighted the following points: 100,000 dunams of land (25,000 acres) were readied for cultivation; 109 kilometers of security roads were opened up; another 400 kilometers of pasture trails were blazed; 16,000 dunams of waterlogged land were drained; five dams were built, providing storage facilities for 7.5 million cubic meters of water; and the groundwork was prepared for the establishment of all the 26 existing Golan settlements.
The main spurt in Golan development has been achieved during the last three years, Shamir pointed out. In its forestry work, the JNF, he said, had: planted 25,000 trees in army camps in the Golan; planted 1000 dunams of trees on the slopes of the Golan Heights; planted trees in eight settlements, and laid out three recreation parks, at Gamla, the planned new town of Katrin, and the “Jordan Park.”
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