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