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We are reminded that biodiversity was the predominant concept for conveying
the importance of ecological conservation to the public during the past two or more
decades. We suggest that the lack of success of that concept, which has been argued
to have been largely a paradigm development to strengthen the role of ecologists in
development discourse (Takaks 1996 ), in preventing global species extinctions and
habitat destruction gave rise to the new, current concept, of ecosystem services.
Like the term biodiversity, we fi nd that the ES concept also is diffi cult to convey to
the general public. The Hebrew translation is particularly diffi cult, as interview
respondents confused the term with a variety of other phenomena, from the private
companies that come and haul away garbage and sewage, or those that sell pesticides
to farmers. Some mistook the term to mean composting toilets.
Yet we are cautiously optimistic regarding the application of the ES framework
within the burgeoning research program of the Wadi Araba LTSER platform.
An important added value of ES research is that applying social research methods
to ES assessment has catalyzed direct contact between researchers and communities.
This contact allows for two-way learning in which respondents to questionnaires,
interviews, and participants in focus group discussions have the opportunity to
express their opinions, perceptions, and needs with regard to their natural environment.
The researcher, through the act of inquiry, provokes the respondent to think about
issues that they may have not considered, particularly about the role of ES in their
well-being. Both researcher and subject become more sensitive to social and
ecological needs.
We concur with Maass and Equihua ( 2015 , this volume [Chap. 14 ]) regarding the
need to make their suggested paradigm shifts, which corroborate well the transition
from LTER to LTSER (Haberl et al. 2006 ). Our experiences provide insights regarding
the on-the-ground challenges for implementing those changes in a small corner of the
Middle East. Within Israel, the gap between theory and implementation of LTSER
remains wide. Between Israel and Jordan, the collaboration is an excellent fi rst step
to bridging the gaps in a common ecosystem. It is clear that without the political
motivation to work together in order to build bridges between the two countries,
such research would not have been possible due to the many obstacles that exist.
In both countries the ecologists work together with social scientists. The combination
of transboundary, transdisciplinary research is a complex challenge that brings
new insights and angles to the study of the Wadi Araba landscape. If mutual benefi ts
(for Jordanians and Israelis) could be derived from the platform in the form of
improved ecosystem management, and local people perceive these benefi ts, this
would be an excellent tool for peace making and, as a result, it would strengthen the
collaboration and the two LTSER platforms could fl ourish.
Acknowledgements We gratefully acknowledge the work of our Jordanian colleagues. We thank
the editors of this volume for their improvements to the manuscript and our research assistants,
Hila Sagie and Inna Kaplan. Roy Zaidenberg developed the model displayed in Fig. 18.2 . Portions
of this research were supported by a trans-border cooperation grant from the Israel Ministry of
Regional Cooperation to the Dead Sea - Arava Science Center.
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