For several years the Galilee Eco Center existed mostly as a vision: conversations, plans, sketches, meetings, fundraising, and a very clear idea of what we hoped to create.
Then, in the summer of 2025, we completed the purchase of nine dunams of agricultural land in Rosh Pina, and my family and I packed up our home in Mevaseret Tzion and moved north.
Suddenly, the Galilee Eco Center wasn’t just something we were planning anymore. We had land beneath our feet.
Since then, our project area has grown to approximately 22 dunams, including beautiful areas of established native trees and shrubs.
And over the past year—particularly this summer—the landscape itself has begun to change.
There are now terraces where there was once an rocky hillside. An old seasonal pool, buried for years beneath rocks and vegetation, has been uncovered. Water lines run beneath the ground. The road that once crossed through our property has been relocated. Areas that were inaccessible have been opened up.
For the first time, we can begin to see the physical foundations of the place we’ve spent years imagining.
Letting the land breathe
For many years, the main field was cultivated for wheat.
During our first growing season managing the land, we made a conscious decision not to till or cultivate it. Instead, we let it be.
Throughout the Winter and Spring, our field filled with spontaneous vegetation and wildflowers. It was our first opportunity to observe what emerged when the land was simply given some time.
When summer arrived and we needed to begin preparing areas for the next stage, we still wanted to minimize unnecessary disturbance to the soil below. Rather than tilling the entire field, we used a flail mower to cut and shred the vegetation at the surface.
At the same time, an excavator began the larger work of shaping areas needed for the Eco Center: clearing heavily overgrown sections, preparing the future outdoor classroom areas and excavating channels for underground infrastructure.
This coming season, we’ll begin the next stage: creating swales, addressing areas of heavily compacted soil, and preparing the land for trees.
And there are going to be a lot of trees.
More on that at the end.
The year-long quest for water
Of all the things we’ve accomplished this year, one of the least photogenic may also be one of the most important:
We got water.
Fresh water was the more straightforward part. After coordinating with the Rosh Pina Local Council, the Ministry of Agriculture and Mekorot, our request was approved in February.
A roughly 100-meter trench was then carefully excavated from the main water hub to our property.
We took advantage of that excavation to lay two lines: one for fresh water and one for the agricultural water connection we were still working to secure.
That second pipe represented something of a leap of faith.
When we began asking about agricultural water, neighboring farmers warned us that getting a new allocation would be next to impossible.
They weren’t entirely wrong.
First, we had to establish recognition from the Ministry of Agriculture that we were undertaking agricultural activity. Then we had to wait for the annual application window for agricultural water allocations.
The previous year, that window hadn’t opened at all.
So Avi called. And called again.
Week after week, he checked whether applications had opened.
Finally, in June, they did—for just three weeks.
We applied.
And approximately two months later, our agricultural water allocation was approved.
With the generous support from Good Energy we’ve now purchased and installed the main underground pipes that will eventually carry water across the property. But having water to the land and getting water around 22 dunams of land are two very different things.
We still need to complete the irrigation network—including distribution pipes, valves, connectors, irrigation controllers and all the less glamorous little pieces required to turn a water allocation into water reaching a tree.
After a year of paperwork, phone calls and persistence, seeing those first pipes on the land feels surprisingly exciting.
Reshaping the landscape
This summer brought the most dramatic physical changes we’ve seen so far.
On the northern hillside, we constructed three agricultural terraces, creating the future home of our grapevines.
Some of the large boulders used to construct the terraces were brought onto the property. Others came directly out of the land during excavation and were incorporated back into the landscape.
Elsewhere, areas of dense brush that had been virtually inaccessible were cleared, spaces for future outdoor classrooms were prepared, and long channels were excavated for the infrastructure that will eventually run underground.
This major summer earthwork—including the clearing, terraces and pond work—was made possible by the generosity of a private donor. We are enormously grateful to be able to show what that support has already made possible.
Rediscovering an old pond
One of my favorite transformations has happened right in the center of the property.
A natural seasonal runoff channel crosses this part of the land and historically fed into a collecting pool. Years ago, that pool was filled with rocks and boulders and gradually became obscured by dense vegetation.
This summer, we began bringing it back.
The boulders were removed, the vegetation cleared and the natural runoff channel reopened. We also expanded the collecting area to approximately 10 by 20 meters.
Clearing years of dense brush that had grown out of the old pond site, fed by the water that collected there each winter.
It doesn’t look much like a pond yet.
That’s because we’re waiting for the rain.
The next stage will be to line and prepare the pond so that winter runoff can once again travel down the natural channel and collect here. Over time, our goal is for this to become an ecological pond—a source of water and habitat woven into the wider ecosystem we’re creating.
I’m particularly looking forward to documenting what begins to find its way here once the water returns.
Building the boundaries
Another major undertaking was fencing the property. With approximately 825 meters of fencing required, securing the site was a substantial project. The fence is essential for protecting new plantings and agricultural areas, managing access to the property, and creating a secure site for the infrastructure and equipment being installed.
With the help of volunteers, we began installing the fence in early 2026, and this summer we finally completed the fencing around the property.
Moving the road—and getting our land back
When we purchased the property, an existing agricultural dirt road ran through our land, occupying approximately a dunam and a half.
It was an established road used regularly by neighboring farmers, trucks, buggies and other vehicles. But although the road physically crossed our property, its correctly zoned route was outside our land.
Apart from occupying a substantial amount of usable space, passing vehicles brought traffic, noise and clouds of dust onto the property.
Moving an existing road that other people rely on is not exactly a matter of simply calling a tractor.
It took months of conversations, negotiation and diplomacy with our new neighbors.
Eventually, we reached an agreement to relocate the road to its correctly zoned location outside our property.
The new route now passes behind an existing line of trees, creating a natural buffer from both traffic noise and dust—and returning approximately a dunam and a half to the Eco Center.
Building the less-visible foundations
Not everything we’ve been working on can be photographed.
In October 2025, a Ministry of Agriculture advisor visited the property to consult with us about vegetable production and provided a recommendation for the establishment of a greenhouse.
Since then, our architect has obtained the relevant infrastructure plans and designed the greenhouse, an engineer has reviewed and signed off on those plans, and the application has now been submitted to the planning authorities.
We’re waiting for approval or requested amendments before moving on to the next challenge: raising the money to actually build it.
At the same time, some of the most important groundwork has been happening between people rather than on the land.
Over the past year we’ve been fortunate to welcome people from Livnot U’Lehibanot, RegenIL, GAIA Partners, MIGAL, Good Energy and Taglit-Birthright Israel to the land, exploring ways that our work can intersect and grow together.
We’ve also established the Visionary Circle, a volunteer advisory council made up of GEC supporters and accomplished professionals from a wide range of fields and backgrounds.
Members lend their expertise, experience, networks and perspectives to help us navigate the strategic, organizational, financial, environmental and community questions that arise as GEC grows.
Having this diverse group of people thinking alongside us has added another kind of infrastructure to the project—one that isn’t visible on the land, but that we believe will be enormously important to its long-term success.
Sharing the story beyond the land
As the Galilee Eco Center has begun taking physical shape, its story has also begun reaching a wider audience.
In January, iGrow News featured GEC’s developing vision for regenerative agriculture and ecological education in the Upper Galilee.
In March, our founder Ariela Solomon wrote in The Times of Israel about the deeper “why” behind building the Eco Center during a period of war and uncertainty—planting, quite literally, for the future.
And in April, The Jerusalem Post published an in-depth feature on GEC, exploring our approach to regenerative agriculture, Jewish connection to the land, education and the scientific possibilities of studying how the land responds as we restore it.
For a project that existed for so long primarily as an idea shared among a relatively small circle of people, seeing that vision begin to enter a wider conversation has been another meaningful milestone.
Preparing for people
As the land becomes ready for planting, it’s also becoming ready to welcome more people.
Volunteers and visiting groups will increasingly be joining us for planting, restoration and educational activities. That creates a very practical need:
Toilets!
And, this being an Eco Center, we’re not planning to solve that problem with conventional portable toilets.
One of our immediate projects is the construction of composting toilets for volunteers and visitors—giving us the sanitation infrastructure we need while keeping it consistent with the ecological principles we’re trying to demonstrate on the land.
We are currently seeking funding to make this happen.
And now, we plant
For much of the past year, our work has been about creating foundations.
Water.
Access.
Terraces.
Earthworks.
Infrastructure.
Much of it isn’t what you picture when you imagine an ecological center. But it’s what has to happen before the vision can take root.
And now we’re approaching a moment we’ve been waiting for.
This October, 1,000 trees are coming to the Galilee Eco Center.
Through our partnership with Good Energy, we’ll receive a diverse mixture of trees, including many native species. And through our partnership with Taglit-Birthright Israel, groups of participants will come to the land to help us plant them.
But 1,000 newly planted trees also need water.
Completing the irrigation system is therefore one of our most immediate priorities. Alongside the composting toilets, it is one of the two projects for which we’re currently seeking funding.
If you’d like to help us bring this next phase to life, your donation will help us complete the infrastructure needed to establish these trees and support the living landscape we’re building for the years ahead.
After a year spent preparing the ground, we’re finally going to start putting roots into it.
We’ll be documenting the planting, the species we’re choosing, where they’re going and why—and that will be a story of its own.
Watch this space.
