The trees, environmental victim of the Lebanese crisis: "It has become too difficult to heat up with diesel"

Faruq Barhum no longer uses a power saw to cut down trees when he needs wood to heat his humble home in the Lebanese town of Mayfouk.

After several warnings from the local authorities for illegal logging, he resorts to a traditional one so as not to be discovered.

“It takes a lot longer, but it makes a lot less noise,” admits Barhum, a Syrian refugee in the Byblos area, one of the most beautiful and mountainous areas in Lebanon, but also one of the areas with the most trees, some of them centuries-old, which is losing the serious economic, political and energy crisis that the country has been going through since 2019, one of the three most serious in the world since the 19th century, according to the World Bank.

Barham, 36;

his wife, Amina, 29, and his four children eke out a little help from the United Nations and the salary of picking up trash twice a week.

The State only guarantees a few hours of electricity a day (four, since February; before, between one and two).

The rest depends on extras that they cannot afford: private generators, diesel or the installation of solar panels.

So they recharge their mobile at a gas station and live in near darkness since sunset.

“I'd rather buy food than candles,” he explains, while his wife fuels the stove with wood.

The fire in the center of the main room heats, gives some light and allows cooking, patiently holding the pan on top.

“Even when it's maxed out, there's a long wait for the food to be done.

And, to fry potatoes, we need to add wood.

We don't always have, so sometimes we wear whatever, shoes or plastic things.

It leaves a horrible smell, ”she laments.

Amina, a Syrian refugee in northern Lebanon, heats water with a stove at home.Diego Ibarra

In this context of energy poverty, images of forests with illegally cut trees began to appear on social networks and the media last year.

Some, up to 500 years old.

They are not the famous cedars already mentioned in the Old Testament and so associated with Lebanon that they even appear on its flag and its national anthem, despite the fact that only a few remain, protected in reserves.

It is rather about oaks, pines, firs and junipers.

The latter can grow at altitudes between 1,400 and 2,800 meters and their ability to resist lack of water or extreme temperatures makes them a key ally against climate change.

Lebanon ―to which its mythical singer Fairuz dedicated in 1963 a song entitled

Green Lebanon) ― has lost a lot of forest area, but it is still 13% of the country, according to data from the Ministry of Agriculture.

Due to the altitude and the frequency with which it snows in this mountainous region, the locals (mostly Maronite Christians) have been using firewood for generations to heat or cook.

But the crisis has changed the extent of logging, legal and illegal.

The savings of the Lebanese are subject to a corralito, the currency has lost 98% of its value, migration to Europe has skyrocketed and - most important in this case - the shortage of diesel for boilers has skyrocketed its price.

“We used to heat ourselves with gas or oil, but these days it has become too complicated,” explains Thérèse Tarabayt, 64, as she shows the fireplace in her house in Mayfouk with her daughter-in-law Nisrín.

She is, she says, a new model that brings to the installation the heat produced by burning the wood that her children cut on the family land.

Thérèse Tarabayt stacks firewood in her house in Mayfouk. DIEGO IBARRA SANCHEZ

"The crisis has pushed the citizens of certain regions to fell trees randomly, without going to the Ministry of Agriculture [responsible for monitoring forests] to obtain permits," its headline told the Lebanese newspaper L'Orient Today last

year

, Abbas Hajj Hassan, who estimated in "hundreds" the complaints of illegal logging that his department received daily.

Hajj Hassan considered it impossible to investigate all of them and patrol the green areas due to lack of personnel and even funds to pay for the gasoline needed by the patrolling vehicles.

"It's a real shame, because in fact we constantly talk to the United Nations, donors and the European Union about the need to have more green spaces in Lebanon," he added.

95% energy from fossil fuels

The economic crash has further exposed the inefficiencies of an energy system that never recovered from the civil war (1975-1990) and has a

anchored in dependence on hydrocarbons.

In a country with 300 sunny days a year, only 1% of state energy comes from the sun, while 95% comes from burning fossil fuels.

Samir Suleiman cuts firewood near his home, in Mayfouk. DIEGO IBARRA SANCHEZ

In the surroundings of Mayfouk you can see a few trees felled by the base.

Also people cutting logs into smaller pieces, or transporting them by car or van.

The director of Rural Development and Natural Resources of the Ministry of Agriculture, Chadi Mehanna, has alluded to “mafias with SUVs that work at night”.

During the day you can also hear saws and the locals are wary of whoever asks.

In that area, a series of videos showed hundreds of felled pine trunks last September.

Nayat Saliba, environmental expert, former director of the Center for the Conservation of Nature at the American University of Beirut and, since May, an alternative deputy to the traditional political elite that emerged from the

(revolution) of 2019, went to the place to denounce the "catastrophe".

Today, she insists on the importance of raising awareness and offering an alternative to the population.

“We understand the situation.

The rise in the price of fuel has pushed many people to go and log.

But at the same time we have trees that are over 200 years old that have shaped our identity and created the landscape we know.

How do you strike a balance between the two?” he points out in an interview at his party headquarters, Taqadum, in Beirut.

Saliba is committed to convincing the locals to heat themselves with branches obtained from pruning and with bushes, given that "the State is not there, and awareness-raising and monitoring of good practices have not been implemented."

Nayat Saliba, in his office at the Center for the Conservation of Nature of the American University of Beirut. DIEGO IBARRA SANCHEZ

Wood has become the cheapest means of heating in Lebanon, according to an analysis published last September by the Beirut-based International Information consultancy, which warns of "environmental repercussions" by increasing "the felling of trees and arson."

According to the document, the diesel needed to heat a home in winter costs seven times more this winter than in 2021-2022.

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