Lebanon's cedars and the fight for survival

Lebanon's cedar forests have stood for millennia, witnesses to Phoenician shipbuilders, biblical kings, and the rise and fall of empires. Today, the tree that anchors the country's flag and its identity is fighting a war, one against a warming climate, invasive pests, and the pressures of a shrinking, fragmented habitat.

A shrinking kingdom

The numbers behind Lebanon's cedar decline are stark. Botanical surveys estimate that only about 5 percent of the original cedar forest cover in Lebanon and Syria remains today, with just twelve surviving cedar groves left in Lebanon, of which only 17 square kilometers are untouched old-growth forest. The species, Cedrus libani, is listed as Vulnerable on the International Union for Conservation of Nature Red List, while the Cedar Nature Reserve alone protects roughly a quarter of Lebanon's remaining cedar forest.

Climate change is accelerating the decline. In Tannourine, insect infestations linked to warmer, drier conditions have already killed more than 7 percent of the forest's trees. Meanwhile, nine of Lebanon's twelve cedar forests already occupy mountain summits, leaving little room for the species to migrate as temperatures rise.

That outlook is reinforced by regional climate projections, which forecast temperatures in the Middle East rising by up to 4°C by the end of the century, alongside longer droughts, more intense heatwaves, and worsening wildfire conditions. In 2024 alone, satellite data recorded more than 10,800 hectares burned in southern Lebanon, while conservation groups warn that fires, pests, disease, illegal cutting, overgrazing, and urban expansion are placing unprecedented pressure on the country's remaining cedar forests.

Minister Nizar Hani to The Beiruter

Nizar Hani, Lebanon's Minister of Agriculture, offered a more nuanced exclusive assessment to The Beiruter. "Today all forest trees are being affected by the impacts of climate change," he said, "including the cedars, but in practice the damage is not concentrated in the cedars so much as in the pines, especially the fruit-bearing pine, and the oak." The cedars, he explained, already grow at high altitude and have built up real resilience over time, though it isn't immune: "Natural regeneration is affected. The trees migrate to higher elevations, what we call forest migration," pushing stands into zones better suited to the temperature and humidity they need, but also exposing them to more insects and disease along the way.

Because Lebanon's pine nut industry carries real economic weight, Hani said the ministry has prioritized treating pine stands first, and described a new protocol launching before the end of July: "The summer spraying campaign, as we call it, and now we've brought in drones, we have more advanced spraying technology."

He credited a Chinese training team with teaching ministry staff and the Lebanese Army to operate the drones, framing the partnership as central to the effort: "We have the treatments, we have everything we need, we have cooperation with the army," allowing the ministry to "spray more effectively than we could before with helicopters." Oak trees are also being monitored, he said, with dead wood cleared from some sites to deny insects and disease a place to shelter, and cautious optimism that last year's heavier rain, snowfall, and seedling growth might lessen the impact of the coming season.

On the ground in Bsharre

Dr. Youssef Tawk, head of the environmental protection committee and the Cedars Friends Committee (Lajnat Asdiqa' al-Arz) in Bsharre, described a conservation effort now spanning close to four decades.

"We started in 1986 protecting the forest, what was left of the forest, because there had been war and so on," he said, before the group pivoted toward active planting, "We started in 1991 with reforestation, with planting cedars." He was careful to note the scope went beyond the cedar itself: "What we did as an association, as the environmental preservation body, was protect not just the cedars but all the forests that exist in the region," including cypress stands across Bsharre.

By his estimate, the committee has since planted "at minimum 130,000" cedar saplings, across "five hundred, six hundred hectares... fifty times bigger than the forest that exists" in Bsharre itself. He also pointed to newer work propagating the "lzeq," a stone-pine relative that grows above 2,000 meters, higher than the cedar's usual range, and reintroducing it in areas like Ard al-Sawda.

On disease, Tawk traced the first serious outbreak he documented to 1992, discovered in the forests of Hadath and Tannourine. "We contacted a lot of outside parties, because here in Lebanon there weren't the capabilities," he recalled. "That's how we even identified the disease." Though he added that new fungal or bacterial threats still surface periodically: "Whenever we sense there's some disease or problem, we get in touch with the relevant parties to treat it."

Looking ahead, he described a long-term project still in early stages: "a future project to create a returning cedar corridor from Hadath-Tannourine to Ehden, passing through the Bsharre forest", physically reconnecting stands that have been fragmented for generations.

Guardians of the Cedars

Saving Lebanon's cedars is about preserving a species and protecting the country's history, identity, and natural heritage against a future that is changing faster than the forests can adapt. While climate change continues to redraw the mountains these trees have called home for thousands of years, scientists, conservationists, and government agencies are racing to give them a fighting chance through restoration, technology, and decades-long planning. The cedar has survived empires, wars, and centuries of exploitation. Now, Lebanon continues fighting for the symbol that has long stood at the heart of the nation.