A stunning carpet of hail covered the earth from Wednesday night through noon the following day in the Kfar Hahoresh forest. A car stopped suddenly, and out stepped four forestation experts.

They entered the wood, their eyes trained on the treetops - pines, oaks, pistachios and cypresses - and then bent down to see the vegetation on the ground - a carpet of cyclamens ready to bloom, mandrakes and various kinds of grass. They gave every tree a thorough analysis. For them, this site is a convincing argument against the bad name that pine forests have earned.

"While the man-made forest is still alive, the next forest is being formed within it, and it is different from the mother forest in many respects," says Dr. Yagil Osem, a plant researcher at the Volcani Institute. "This is an intriguing story for afforestation, environment and science."

The first pine forests in Israel, particularly Jerusalem pine, were planted in the 1930s.

"Initially, the afforestation enterprise saw man as the center, and its goals were to provide for him," Osem explains. "It sought to rehabilitate landscapes destroyed by over-exploitation, after trees had been chopped down, herds had grazed and fires had raged. Those in charge of afforestation at that time had socio-political considerations such as creating employment and recreation sites, maintaining ownership, and even supporting the wood industry."

The destroyed landscapes left behind by the Ottoman Empire, combined with the planters' meager knowledge of local species such as the oak, turned the afforestation enterprise toward the pine tree.

"That was a revolution," says Osem. "Suddenly they could set up a forest on marginal lands. For the pioneers, who came from Europe and wanted some familiar scenery, the pine needles were perfect, psychologically speaking."

However, over the years, the pine forests became the focus of attacks and scorn, and the tree soon became identified with Jewish National Fund forests. The monotonous pine landscape, which appeared to have been copied and pasted all over the Galilee, the coast, the Jerusalem hills and the northern Negev, was poorly received by nature lovers who wanted to see local species and groves indigenous to the Land of Israel.

"Pine tree deserts" is how they angrily described these conifers, under which it seemed like nothing would grow. Some even were happy to see that during the Second Lebanon War, thousands of dunams were burned in the northern Galilee. Critics said the pine forests did not allow the natural flora to renew itself, and replaced it with an unnatural forest - conifers that were too close together and too sensitive to fire, and which suppressed wild saplings to the point of eliminating diversity.

The argument over the pine forests becomes even more intense regarding the northern Negev.

"The ecological argument intensifies here," Osem says, "since the desert afforestation is based largely on imported species, and this creates an extreme environmental change. This is a confrontation between the classic ecological viewpoint of preserving the natural desert environment and an act of afforestation that is considered to be against nature. At the same time, some consider this an important act in terms of settlement, encouraging tourism and lowering local temperatures."

Osem says most of the pine forests in Israel come from seeds brought from the western Mediterranean and North Africa. These seeds are not perfectly suited to the longer summer, drier conditions and higher temperatures here, and this is apparently one of the reasons why many of these forests have perished.

Massive renewal

However, a recent survey of vegetation underneath the pine trees, from the northern Negev to the upper Galilee, indicate different conclusions, clearing the name of the vilified pine. "The survey shows we are undergoing a massive process of undergrowth renewal," Osem announces. "The claim of 'pine deserts' was correct for a certain period," he says. "Now, 50 or 60 years after that massive tree planting [enterprise], we see the picture has changed."

Osem believes people feel put off by the pine trees because in the 1970s and 1980s, the forests were still young and too closely planted, and the undergrowth was still repressed.

"Now the next generation of forest is beginning," he says. "It is local and diversified. The first generation is about to end its life and the next generation is beginning, through natural regeneration, trees that survived and underwent selection. The forest is adapting itself to its surroundings."

Suheil Zidan, a JNF forestation expert, says: "Now, after 60 years of afforestation, we see that the forest has improved the ground and pastures, created green lungs, brought in new growth such as mushrooms, and expanded diversity. No less important, it has also attracted day-trippers who would not have reached those areas and enjoyed these archaeological sites, were it not for the forests."

"Now we are seeing a process of selection through natural renewal," Osem says. "Trees that survived the selection process spread their seeds. The forest thus adapts itself to the region. The assumption is that after several generations, the forest will have adapted to its environment. A generation for a pine is 80 to 100 years. The approach today is that the forest's natural processes will create the next forest, a diversified, local forest."

Sheli Ben-Yishai, the Nazareth region forester, cites the Balfour Forest, near Migdal Ha'emek, and says, "This is a very old forest of Jerusalem pines; it was planted by the British Mandate government's afforestation department in the 1930s, by the founders of Kibbutz Ginegar. You can see the diversity that has sprung up there."

As the tour of the Kfar Horesh forest continues, JNF employee Michael Weinberger says: "In places where forests were planted on the remnants of natural groves, we see that those remnants have begun to flourish."

Ben-Yishai points to a part of the forest where many pines died of an illness. Next to the tree stumps he notes oak and pistachio saplings. "The desertification claims are not correct," he says, as if he himself had been defamed, not the pines.

It seems these four people are trying to return the pine to the pioneering role it held during the heyday of the afforestation enterprise.

"In order to reach a diversified forest, which is what we are aiming at today, we must start with a pioneering forest, a forest that grows quickly and creates a canopy for undergrowth, which is the next generation of the forest," says Zidan.

Bursting potential

Now that the forest is beginning to open up, they say, its potential - which had been lying in wait, or brought in by animals - is bursting forth.

At the same time, Osem stresses that scientifically, there is still an argument over the extent to which pine contributes to establishing undergrowth. "Some papers show it encourages the development of the undergrowth, while others show it curbs it," he says.

Nevertheless, all four agree that intervention is needed in order to create a diversified forest. "Area management," they call it - the forest must be thinned, trees must be pruned, partition lines created and grazing animals brought in to cut down on grass, and thus also reduce the risk of fire.

The four discuss a tall oak among the pines. "It competes with them for light and grows quickly," says Weinberger. "The pines have created a sleeve for it."

"I salute the generation that planted the forests," says Zidan. "Through their actions, they left all the options in our hands, even the option of arguing."

Osem addresses the pines: "They left us all the options open," he says. "No irreversible damage was created, and today we can take things in whatever direction we wish."