Support sustainable tourism through safeguarding, rehabilitation and promotion of the Agro-Cultural Landscape

General

After 1967, and in particular over the past two decades, this area witnessed the progressive establishment of several new settlements and their connecting infrastructure (i.e. roads, public service outputs), leading to the ‘enclavisation’ of the Battir area and surrounding villages (Hussan, Beit Jala and Wadi Fukin) and a new complex mobility system resulting from the separation of roads. Also, the recently constructed Separation Barrier that surrounds the Bethlehem urban area further isolates the Western Bethlehem Villages from the West Bank, the city of Bethlehem and even from each other. This situation has triggered a socio-economic crisis in the area characterized by agricultural livelihood decline (due to increasing transaction costs, poor market access for local products and expropriation of agricultural land), as well as reduced freshwater availability. This project has the double purpose of promoting sustainable tourism in the UNESCO World Heritage Site of Battir through the rehabilitation and protection of its unique cultural landscape with millenary terrasses and irrigation system and to strengthen the sustainable production of agro-ecological varieties typical of the area, even from an economic standpoint, thanks to the efficient use of the natural resources of the area.