Lebanese villagers sound alarm over scourging centuries-old trees: report

Lebanon News
2023-02-02 | 05:26
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Lebanese villagers sound alarm over scourging centuries-old trees: report
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Lebanese villagers sound alarm over scourging centuries-old trees: report

With the economic crisis, many Lebanese living in the mountainside are finding alternative ways of heating to face the bitter cold.

Yet villagers in Lebanon have been patrolling the northern mountainside to protect trees from loggers. Near Ainata village, "nearly 150 centuries-old oak trees have been felled" in the past year, Ghandi Rahme told Agence France-Presse (AFP).  
 
The municipal police officer is among around a dozen volunteers working to deter loggers who take to the trees with chainsaws.  
 
Residents and officials who AFP spoke to in Ainata and other mountain villages blamed gangs for felling centuries-old oak and juniper trees.  
 
Based on the report, the volunteers in Ainata said they have financial support, mainly from expatriates, to pay for fuel and vehicle maintenance.  
 
In Barqa, mayor Ghassan Geagea told AFP that loggers with impunity cut down scores of trees, including junipers reported to be thousands of years old, as according to AFP, "Lebanon has the largest juniper woods in the Middle East, according to the environment ministry, and is also home to pine, oak, cedar and fir forests."  
 
Paul Abi Rached, who heads Terre Liban, decried the rising numbers of "environmental massacres" in Lebanon, significantly raising the alarm over the felling of juniper trees, which based on his comments, Junipers are among "the few trees that can grow at high altitudes," as they have an essential role in replenishing groundwater reserves, warning that "If we don't stop juniper felling, we will be headed for water shortages and drought."  
 
Near Ainata, activist Dany Geagea has also taken matters into his hands by helping set up a juniper reserve, saying that around 30,000 trees had been planted in the past two decades; however, since September, logging has become a repeated occurrence.  
 
Yet those responsible were rarely arrested and "quickly released, without being investigated," he voiced, adding that "illegal logging is not a new problem, but now it's become an organized" trade, Geagea said.
 

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