According to an article I originally saw on Yahoo News and have found again on digitaljournal, in the midst of seemingly endless Mideast violence Israelis and Jordanians are sharing ideas for protecting nature, using barn owls instead of harmful pesticides to keep rats from devouring date palm crops. Here’s the interesting part: The date palm farms are in Jordan, and the barn owls live across the river in Israel. With funding from a Jewish organization in Cleveland, a kibbutz in Israel helped Jordanians build nesting boxes to attract the barn owls. The results: natural predators control the harmful rat population with no chemical toxicity and crops are saved. Every participant is happy, with the possible exception of the rats. 
The political and environmental benefits are enormous, according to Associated Press writer Ben Winograd, and the conclusion is that everybody wins, inroads to peace are established, and the owl becomes the new dove of peace in a move undertaken entirely outside the political process. Read more about it, and imagine more ways to make this kind of progress. BRAVO!
About
Writer, editor, photojournalist, cartoonist, Beverly Spicer is the E-Bits columnst at The Digital Journalist, a video and photojournalism webzine at http://digitaljournalist. org. She is a diarist and author of two books. Her undergraduate degree is in physiological psychology and biological sciences, and she has a interdisciplinary Master of Science in architectural studies combining architecture, neuroscience, and Middle Eastern studies. .
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What a great story. Barn owls have always been one of my favorite birds so I enjoy seeing them participate in such a peaceful mission. See, we really can work together.
Wonderful story!