The ceremony was covered extensively by the media.
"I see local authority as the body that governs the day to day life of the citizens of Israel,” said KKL-JNF World Chairman Efi Stenzler in his greetings at the ceremony. “The aim is to create identification with the place of residence. The approach that guides the organization is to provide the municipalities and the regional councils with a high quality and supportive environment for which we work with them cooperatively on hundreds of different joint projects annually."
Since it was founded, KKL-JNF has planted around 240 million trees and is usually associated with its traditional role in forestry, in the maintenance and development of forests and in planting trees. KKL-JNF maintains more than a million dunams (1000 square kilometers) of forests and open spaces and plays an active role in combating wildfires. In recent years KKL-JNF has also launched the Tree for Every Resident project, in which it has made a commitment to plant more than seven million new trees in Israel. KKL-JNF promotes cycling and is developing bike trails all over Israel. The common denominator of all KKL-JNF projects is bringing the people closer to nature, and KKL-JNF has adopted advancing people and their environment as its goal.