10 New Sheqalim Hula Nature Reserve

Part of Israel's ongoing Nature Reserves bullion series, this issue commemorates the Hula Valley wetlands in northern Galilee — a drainage project gone badly wrong and then reversed. In the 1950s, the Israeli government drained Lake Hula entirely to eliminate malaria and gain agricultural land, an operation celebrated at the time as a triumph of Zionist land reclamation. Within two decades, the exposed peat began oxidizing and catching fire, saltwater intrusion threatened the Sea of Galilee, and massive peat subsidence rendered the farmland nearly unusable. Partial reflooding began in 1994, and the restored Hula Lake now hosts one of the most significant migratory bird corridors in the Eastern Mediterranean.