Last stand

• Last Updated: April 04. 2009 1:39PM UAE / April 4. 2009 9:39AM GMT

Having once covered much of Lebanon’s rugged terrain, the country’s cedar tree, prized throughout history and the unifying emblem of a divided nation, is under threat from a warming world. By Hamida Ghafour

By this time of year the heavy layers of snow over Mount Lebanon should be beginning to melt into cold springs that nourish the purplish-green cedar cones buried in the dark, damp earth. But something is wrong. Lebanon has experienced an unseasonably warm winter and very little rain or snow has fallen. Instead of the five or six metres of deep snow that should have blanketed the steep mountains of the Shouf region located south-east of Beirut there has been perhaps 5-12cm.

Scientists and nature conservationists blame climate change and are increasingly concerned about the impact of warmer weather on the Lebanese cedar trees which need long, cold winters to survive and thrive.

“I grew up in Shouf and this is abnormal,” says Nizar Hani, scientific co-ordinator for the Al Shouf Cedar Reserve, home to 600 hectares of the Lebanese cedar. “There has not been enough snow or rain this year. Our only message right now as far as the cedars are concerned is preservation, preservation and more preservation. These trees could face extinction unless we quickly address the problem of climate change.”

The tree, cedrus libani, is an emblem of this fractured state; its spreading branches as much identified with Lebanon as civil war, beautiful women and an easy-going Mediterranean culture.

The fragrant evergreens, with their striking reddish colour, are also a rare symbol of national unity: rival Christian, Sunni and Shiite political factions may quarrel on the streets or in parliament but when they need a moment of patriotism they recall the Lebanese cedar. Indeed, when citizens marched on the streets in March 2005 to demand the withdrawal of Syrian troops after nearly 30 years of occupation, it was called the Cedar Revolution. The mass protests were a success and the 14,000 Syrian soldiers left. The tree is emblazoned on the flag, the passport, and all manner of tourist tat such as mouse pads, key chains and tea towels.

But the Lebanese cedar is under threat. A combination of little snow, sawfly infestations and forest fires, all blamed on global warming, have thrown the natural rhythm of Mediterranean winters off balance.

“Climate change has a major environmental significance and, of course, the cedar is what makes Lebanon. If you look at a map of the Arab world Lebanon is the only patch of green,” says Wael Hmaidan, executive director of Indy Act, a non-profit organisation in Beirut which examines the impact of climate change on the region.

There are only 2,000 hectares of the Lebanese cedar left in the country, concentrated in the Shouf and the Tannourine area in northern Lebanon. About 90 per cent is protected by law and cared for by the ministry of environment.

The survival of the trees in the Shouf region is partly due to the efforts of Walid Jumblatt, the former Druze warlord and now a leading politician. The Druze, whose religious beliefs are an offshoot of the Shiites, have lived in the Shouf mountains for centuries. During the 15-year civil war, which ended in 1990, he dug ditches and planted landmines around the trees in his fiefdom to protect them from loggers and rival militias.

“Not one tree was harmed during that period,” Mr Hani says.

The landmines have since been removed and the trees, some of them 2,000 years old, called the “cedars of God” are now part of the al Shouf reserve, which was established in 1996. Water reservoirs are being built to protect the trees from lack of water in the future.

Once, Lebanese cedars covered about 500,000 hectares, encompassing Mount Lebanon and the Anti-Lebanon range. It was in the great Cedars of Lebanon forest that the hero Gilgamish battled the half-lion monster Humbaba.

There are four species in the world native to Cyprus, Morocco, Afghanistan and the Himalayas. The Lebanese variety’s soft, light wood was highly prized in the ancient world. The trees are mentioned in the Quran and the Bible. King Solomon felled forests to build his temple, and the Assyrians, Babylonians and Romans further depleted the forests.

The ambitions of the long-gone empires took their toll and modern life is compounding the problem of natural regeneration of the forests.

“The seeds of the cedar need two months of being covered with deep snow to germinate. It needs the low temperatures, below zero,” says Hani. The natural growth range of the cedars is 1,200 to 1,800 metres above sea level, but beginning in February, only a patchy few centimetres of snow fell. It lasted about a week or so. This year, only the peaks above 2,000 metres have been covered by deep snowfall.

“If the weather increases in warmth they will need to survive at a higher altitude. At some point there will be nowhere for the trees to go although this species migration has not yet happened.”

Warmer temperatures have also been blamed for sawfly infestations which nearly wiped out an entire forest in Tannourine in 1997. In the normal course of events, this insect, Cephalcia tannourinensis, which is found only in Lebanon, hibernates underground and emerges every three to five years when the ground thaws. But the soil conditions have been changing due to humidity and the pests have emerged from the ground every year. When they do, they eat the new needles, causing the trees to turn rusty-brown and eventually die.

“If you saw the forest it, looked like a fire swept through it. It was so bad, the trees looked burnt,” says Dr Nasri Kawar, an environmentalist and retired American University of Beirut professor who was director of the project that investigated the crisis.

“It took us a couple of years to find the larvae. They appear for a month, only come out in May to June and eat the needles. They are very voracious. Each larva feeds on several needles; each sawfly lays 50 to 60 eggs; so you can imagine the devastation.”

Helicopters flew over the Tannourine Hadath al Jebbeh cedar forest several times, spraying it with bio-insecticides and scientists began studying the pest. With the help of French experts, Kawar and a colleague Nabil Nemer were able to identify the sex pheromones of this particular species in order to understand how to disrupt the sawfly’s reproductive cycle in the future and control further outbreaks.

“We had no choice but to spray the forest. We kept the population under control. You can never eradicate insects, but for seven years we did not have to spray and we keep monitoring it,” says Kawar.

Hmaidan points out that the insects are still coming out of the ground every year. “They [the government] have spent a lot of money and resources on insecticides, spraying to divert this threat.”

The Lebanese used to live in the mountains and cultivate the land but today about 60 per cent of the population live in the suburbs and in Beirut, Hani says. “There is no exact number but a lot of people are leaving the mountains because there are better services and better jobs and schools in the urban areas.” They visit their land during the weekend but they don’t care about agriculture. As a result, the land is being neglected. Forest fires are breaking out more often due to hot weather and with fewer people there to look after it, the fires rage out of control. The forest fire season is normally at the end of the summer but this year fires were still burning in January.

In 2007 and 2008, the number of trees burnt was more than all the trees planted since 1991, a year after the civil war ended.

“All the replanting was useless,” Hmaidan says. “It was in the millions, all the trees were planted since the end of the war. It included oak, pine, deciduous and coniferous including some of them cedar trees. This is a big issue in Lebanon. The region is predicted to be drier and with less precipitation over the years the fire season will worsen because the wind is very dry and grass is wilted.”

Sound government policy and public campaigns are urgently needed to lessen the damage. The Al Shouf reserve has been a success: it is the largest nature reserve in the country, with three cedar forests. It forms part of the larger Shouf Biosphere Reserve, which covers five per cent of Lebanon’s land mass and includes the Ammiq wetland and was declared a Unesco reserve site in 2005. The biosphere reserve runs along the ridge of the western chain of Mount Lebanon from Dahr el Baidar in the north to Jezzine in the south and offers spectacular views of the Bekaa valley to the east.

The ecosystem is so fragile that even camping and picnics are not allowed and tourists must visit on guided tours.

Environmentalists say the government needs to invest more in conserving Lebanon’s natural heritage. There was a public outcry over plans to build a man-made island off the coast of Beirut, near Damour, which will be similar to the Palm Jumeirah in Dubai. Inevitably, perhaps, the Lebanese version is called Cedar Island. Noor International Holding, the company behind the US$8 billion (Dh29.38b) project, says on its website it is carrying out an environmental feasibility study. It has not yet received government permission to begin building, but the blogosphere is full of criticism despite the 50,000 jobs that are expected to be created.

A Facebook group called “No to Cedar Island” is full of angry posts about the devastation it will cause not only to the environment but to Lebanon’s identity. One writer, Rabih, says: “We have natural wonders that amaze the world, we don’t need fake and artificial lands. We have a shore, a mountain and a valley. Those who really have Lebanon on their mind can find thousands of opportunities to bring investments and develop tourism while preserving our identity as a land of natural beauty.”

Kawar calls the island project an “ecological nightmare”, which will also worsen Beirut’s already terrible traffic. He added, however, that the state of the global economy may force a decision in favour of environmentalists. “I cannot imagine seeing many investors jumping into this project.”

The threats that the cedar trees face are symptomatic of a wider environmental disaster looming over the Middle East. The region contributes about five per cent to the causes of global climate change but it will be hit very hard by rising temperatures over the next century, according to a 2008 report entitled Arab Environment: Future Challenges, by the Arab Forum for Environment and Change, a non-governmental organisation in Beirut. The Middle East’s temperature will rise between 2 and 5.5°C by the end of the 21st century, which will mean shorter winters and longer, hotter summers. Water shortages will be common.

With the exception of Egypt, Sudan, Iraq, Lebanon and Syria, all Arab countries are expected to experience “severe water stress” by 2025, the report stated. The average annual available water per capita in the region was 977 cubic metres in 2001, but by 2023 the figure is expected to decrease to nearly half that.

The frequency of droughts has already increased in Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia, while recent droughts in Jordan and Syria were the worst recorded in many decades.

“Today, the state of the Arab environment stands at a pivotal juncture, with numerous environmental problems both current and imminent threatening the region,” the report states.

Rather alarmingly, governments are putting few resources into research and development efforts to solve these problems. European or North American-style environmental campaigns that teach the public about environmental damage are unusual and efforts by schools to show children the importance of recycling, for example, have been poor.

“Unfortunately, Arab countries are not exerting enough efforts like the rest of the world to face climate challenges,” says Hmaidan. “It’s not enough to talk policy but we require public support and public concern so that climate change is a priority in this region. They [governments] are not considering their long-term interests and do not realise the dangers of climate change which might transform Lebanon into a desert and result in the loss of the Lebanese cedar tree.”