KKL-JNF's National Grazing Unit — Coordinating Farmers and Shepherds Against Wildfire Across Israel's Forests

Israel's forests face high Mediterranean wildfire risk, worsened by the decline of traditional grazing: goat numbers on the Carmel range fell from roughly 15,000 in 1970 to about 2,000 by 2013, removing a long-standing form of natural fuel management.

Keren Kayemeth LeIsrael–Jewish National Fund (KKL-JNF), the country's main forestry authority, established a dedicated grazing unit that plans and coordinates farmer- and shepherd-led herds — including Bedouin shepherd groups — moving through KKL-JNF-managed open land to reduce combustible undergrowth. KKL-JNF states the programme helps prevent roughly 80% of fires in the open areas it covers, alongside firebreak construction, fire watchtowers and an annual firefighting budget exceeding US$5 million.

Because grazing generates little direct income for herders, participating shepherds and livestock owners typically receive in-kind support — subsidies, veterinary care, water and supplementary feed — rather than a fixed per-hectare fee; near Jerusalem, the Mateh Yehuda Regional Council area has run a mobile herd programme for about a decade, and the Jerusalem Municipality separately deploys roughly 160 goats, sheep, cattle and camels for the same purpose.

A geographical feasibility study by the Open Landscape Institute (Steinhardt Museum of Natural History, Tel Aviv University), funded by KKL-JNF's forest research fund, found grazing could be extended to nearly all areas around Mateh Yehuda's communities that need it without encroaching on protected reserves — evidence now informing further pilots in Haifa, Kiryat Tivon and Kokhav Ya'ir.

The widely cited 80% fire-prevention figure is the implementing organisation's own claim, not an independently peer-reviewed measurement, so it is treated here as a documented but self-reported outcome rather than rigorously verified evidence.

Read the full analysis: https://www.kkl-jnf.org/forestry-and-ecology/fire-prevention/fighting-wildfires-in-israel/