Tuesday Safar 9, 1423

Lebanon’s lesson on Preserving environment

By Reem Haddad

SHOUF RESERVE (Lebanon): Few would deny that at the beginning they were resentful. The idea of strangers coming into the area and taking over the Shouf Cedar forests, the favorite place for locals to hunt, picnic and chop wood, was unthinkable. But the environmentalists had a strategy - to turn the protected forest into a profitable venture for the local people.

The series of cedar forests span over 550 hectares comprising six forests overlooking several mountain villages. The forests cover five per cent of Lebanon, running along the coastal Mount Lebanon range.

In 1994, a group of environmentalists formed the Shouf Cedar Society and began to plan how to turn the forests into a protected areas. In 1996, the government passed a law declaring the area a protected nature reserve. That same year, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) launched its Protected Areas Project.

It would be their first project dealing with unprotected area management. The aim was to protect endangered wild life. Three areas were chosen in Lebanon, among them the Shouf Cedars.

The management of each reserve was handed over to a local NGO. Funded by the Global Environment Facility (GEF) with a grant of $2.5 million over five years, managed by the UNDP and executed by the Ministry of Environment and assisted by technical experts from the World Conservation Union (IUCN), the reserves project went into full swing with each following their local NGO’s carefully laid out management plan.

With the Cedar Shouf Reserve project becoming a reality, funds and support began to filter in. “For the first two years, our strategy was just protection of the area and not eco-tourism,” says Alameddine.

And this ‘protection’ represented a challenge. Not least from the ever-encroaching quarries that speckle the Lebanese mountains. Having defined the limits of the reserve, the society banned shepherds from entering the area.

The society undertook a broad awareness campaign, culminating in 1999 with the Rural Development Project. The idea was to generate an income for the locals from the reserve.

With a grant from the Canadian Embassy, the society began to purchase from four families traditional homemade products including bottled flower water, jams, vinegar, honey, thyme and dairy products.

The produce was sold at each of the entrances leading into the reserve and visitor centres. They were immediately sold out. Two years later, over 50 families were involved in the project.

Existing income earners include hiking, bird watching, mountain biking, snow-shoeing, horse riding, donkey rides, yoga, van tours and educational trails. The reserve now boasts 32 types of animals including hyenas, wolves, foxes, badgers, jackals, wild boar, wild cats, and lynxes.

A new arrival from Jordan, the Nubian Ibex - extinct in Lebanon for over 100 years - will be making a comeback soon. In addition, 200 species of birds, 40 of them permanent residents of the reserve and 500 species of plants were documented. —Dawn/InterPress Service.