Lebanon forest project: Mount Lebanon

A region suffering from fires and overgrazing

Lebanon is a small country of just 10,452km². The distance from north to south is 217km, and from east to west is 80km at the widest point.

The mountain chain of Mount Lebanon runs through the centre of the country, and it is here that Lebanon's botanical wealth and biodiversity is concentrated. The mountains rise from sea level to heights of 2,100m, providing a variety of different habitats.

Rich in biodiversity
Coniferous forests are an important part of the Mount Lebanon landscape. Forested slopes above 1,300m are dominated by Lebanese cedar (Cedrus libani), while lower areas are dominated by pine (Pinus spp.). Other confier species found in the mountains include Mediterranean cyprus (Cupressus sempervirens), Cilician fir, (Abies cilicica), and juniper (Juniperus spp.).

A variety of other flowering plants, shrubs, and trees are also found in Mount Lebanon, such as Taurus maple (Acer tauricolum), almond (Amygdalus communis L.), hawthorn (Crataegus spp.), oak (Quercus spp.), and Palestine pistachio (Pistacia palestina). Overall, Lebanon has some 2,600 plant species, of which 12 per cent are endemic.

Large carnivores living in Mount Lebanon include golden jackal (Canis aureus syriacus), wolf (Canis lupus pallipes), jungle cat (Felis chaus), and red fox (Vulpus vulpus palaestina). Badger (Meles meles canascens), porcupine (Hystrix indica indica), squirrel (Sciurus anomalus syriacus), wild boar (Sus scrofa lybicus), hedgehog (Erinaceus europaeus concolor), toad (Bufo spp.), snakes, and lizards also live in the forests.

The forests also provide important habitat for a large variety of birds, including migratory birds. Mount Lebanon's forests are part of the wider Mediterranean Forests, Woodlands, and Scrub Ecoregion, one of WWF's Global 200 Ecoregions - a science-based global ranking of the world's most biologically outstanding habitats and the regions on which WWF concentrates its efforts.

This ecoregion fringes the Mediterranean Sea from southern Europe, to the western Near East and Asia Minor, and around to northern Africa. The forests are one of the planet's centres of plant diversity, representing 10% of the world's flowering plants in just over 1.6% of the Earth's surface. Some 25,000 plant species are found here, of which 13,000 are endemic, as well as a number of endangered large mammal species.

Critical habitat for cedar
Rising to heights of 2,100m, Mount Lebanon is a critical habitat for the Lebanese cedar in Lebanon. The species is not threatened at a global level, but remains only in small patches in Lebanon.

Important for people
Mediterranean forests are extremely valuable to the people living near them. The forests provide food in the form of pine nuts and honey, as well as wood. In addition, the forests are a buffer against desertification and are important for freshwater supplies. The cedar forests are also a tourist attraction.

Threats in Lebanon
As in other parts of the Mediterranean, forests in Lebanon have suffered from millennia of degradation from human activities. Current threats include changing land use, urbanization, frequent fires, logging, overgrazing, and unregulated tourism. Hunting is a big threat to Lebanon's birds and large mammals.

Lebanon's forests today are mostly fragmented and degraded. Outside of the two Nature Reserves to protect Lebanese cedar, large areas of forest remain unprotected.

With help from WWF, the Lebanese conservation group AFDC is working to reverse this bleak picture: fighting fires and establishing more sustainable land uses that will help save the country's forests and their biodiversity.

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