Ben Guri­on Uni­ver­si­ty pro­fes­sor Alon Tal was found­ing direc­tor of the Israel Union for Envi­ron­men­tal Defense, Israel’s pre­em­i­nent eco­log­i­cal advo­ca­cy orga­ni­za­tion, and the Ara­va Insti­tute for Envi­ron­men­tal Stud­ies, a Mid­dle East­ern aca­d­e­m­ic pro­gram. A mem­ber of the JNF-KKL board for over a decade, from 2010 to 2013 he chaired Israel’s Green Par­ty. Haaretz has called him ​“Israel’s most effec­tive envi­ron­men­tal leader.”