Lebanon Reforestation Initiative

Each year, Lebanon is losing around 2,500 hectares from its forestry lands which is equivalent to 1,250,000 trees due to many different reasons, such as: forest fires, uncontrolled grazing, urban expansion, illegal cutting and quarrying. In addition to Climate Change which is becoming a very serious threat on existing and future forests. 

Formal education in forestry is quite novel in the country. Lebanon offers no undergraduate degree in forestry, and so far, only the Lebanese University offers a graduate degree in the field for agricultural engineers. Forestry courses are taught in several universities as part of the environmental or agricultural engineering majors. School curricula are yet to include enough information on the sector. With this gap in formal education, LRI decided to focus on Environmental Awareness, Education and Capacity Development as a stand-alone program that aims at increasing public knowledge and ultimately creating a sense of responsibility and positively affecting people’s attitudes and behaviors toward the forests specifically, and the environment more generally.