Green and Blue Unite for a Better Environment

Equipped with new green uniforms and with jeeps prominently marked with a six-pointed insignia bearing the new name, the Green Police is the idea of Minister of the Environment Dalia Itzik. The goal of the unit is to increase the Ministrys enforcement capability by adding uniformed policemen to its veteran Environmental Patrol. At the ceremony, which took place just before the Jewish New Year, President Moshe Katsav heralded the start of a new year in which he hoped that environmental degradation would be drastically reduced, and environmental consciousness improved.

A few days prior to the inauguration ceremony, Itzik outlined some of the details of the campaign, a major law enforcement effort targeted at specific cities and regions throughout the country. Joined by Minister of Internal Security Shlomo Ben Ami and Israel Police Inspector-General Yehuda Wilk, Itzik presented a three-pronged approach to achieving a cleaner environment: enhanced public awareness, more severe penalties and improved enforcement. "In Israel, many people harm the environment because they know the fines are low," said Itzik. "It is about time we learn to treat the issues seriously, raise public awareness, and respond swiftly and harshly against offenders, using all the legal means at our disposal."

Inspector-General Wilk noted that the mandate of the police is to provide quality of life which includes quality of the environment for the countrys citizens, and that the enforcement campaign would raise the commitment of the police to the subject. In conjunction with actual enforcement in the field, Wilk announced that the environmental consciousness and expertise of police officers would be enhanced by lectures and study days on environmental issues.

Itzik added that the level of environmental pollution would drop only when polluters were made to "pay where it hurts: their wallets". Advertisements on radio and in newspapers announcing stiff new fines for littering and polluting, accompanied the campaign.

By the end of their first enforcement drive in Jerusalem, Green Police officers had issued fines for illegal garbage dumping, initiated several investigations, and checked dozens of cars including the Presidents and buses for pollution levels. In the following two months, similar campaigns took place in Tel Aviv, Eilat, Beer Sheva and in the north of the country.

According to a recent poll conducted on behalf of the Ministry of the Environment, Israelis are most disturbed by such environmental nuisances as street litter and air and water pollution. Based on these findings, new measures for immediate penalties from throwing cigarette butts out of car windows, to factories discarding hazardous waste are being instituted, and the enforcement capabilities of the Green Police strengthened. Whether in pursuit of litterbugs, noise offenders or polluters from industrial plants, the Green Police is determined to improve the quality of the environment for all.