Conflict and environment in North Lebanon: A film

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Lebanon has - in recent history - Often been affected by armed conflict The civil
war Repetitive Israel- Lebanon wars.
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Israel will invade Southern Lebanon.
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The Nahr-El-Bared clashes. The clashes in Tripoli, and more recently the spill over
from the war in Syria.
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The Lebanese army is trying to quell the violence.
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Between 2009 - 2014, the Institute of the environment (IOE) at the University of
Balamand (UOB) and the university of Twente in the Netherlands implemented the
project entitled: Conflict and environment in North-Lebanon: A longitudinal study of
environmental and socio-economic mitigation processes in conflict-affected areas.
Funded by the Netherlands organization for scientific research (NWO) WOTRO
science for global development. This project aims at studying the effects of armed
conflicts on the environmental management in the coastal area of North- Lebanon
and political perspective.
Toufic Assal:
Im nostalgic for the past. When I think of Batroun in the pastpeople were kind
back then. Life in Batroun was still unspoiled. Go and look now. It will be the death of
me. I used to have a decent life. But since the nineties you can no longer get
anything healthy from the sea. The sponges have died out. The seafood shrimps,
crabs, shellfish, oysters have all died out. How can that be? I didnt deplete their
stock, no did anyone else. If that were the case, it would make sense. Its all because
of the waste that gets dumped in the sea.

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Dr Manal Nader:
We know that in Lebanon, we've been in conflict for more than 40 years.
Dr Roula Al Daia:
We had the Civil War. In 1996, we had an attack by Israel on the south of Lebanon.
So, we are a fundamentally politically unstable country.
Dr Manal Nader:
We are in constant crises, let's say-- if not between countries, between confessions.
If not between confessions, within the confessions themselves-- not allowing us to be
able to think about the well-being of our communities and our societies. This is on a
grand scale, I could say.
Dr Sahar Issa:
This is what we focused on. This is where the 1982 Israeli invasion, 2006 IsraelLebanon War, 2007 Nahr al-Bared clashes, and 2008 Tripoli clashes. Now, the
Tripoli clashes were also continuous until recently, but we decided to only look at the
2008, because recent one are too recent to consider.
Dr Nivine Hasan Abbas:
My name is Nivine Abbas. I finished my PhD recently last September. I'm working as
assistant professor in the program of Public Health and Social Sciences in Balamand
University.
My research focused mainly on the trust and co-operation relationships in Lebanon,
and their impact on the environmental management process from the perception of
the three main stakeholders-- public sector stakeholders, private sector
stakeholders, and citizens.
Well, based on my research, it has shown that environment is not on the top priority
of the Lebanese government agendas, and their main focus were mainly on the
national security and stability, and on increasing order and solving the economical
problem in our country. And this also was reflected in the findings that there were
very few, if any, projects involved for or related to environment in our country, and
specifically on North Lebanon. It's not a priority.
Dr Manal Nader:
Integrated coastal zone management for the well being of coastal communities. This
is my own personal research, and this is my concentration.

Environmental resources and natural resources create conflicts between nations.

The way we wanted to look at it is different. The way we wanted to look at it, what is
the impact of long term conflicts on environmental decision making? Because we
know today that we are a divided nation. Being a divided nation, it means that
everything we intend to do is driven by our divisions, instead of actually closing our
divisions.
And usually, what you see with these divisions is that the environment, because it is
a public issue, is the least cared for. And therefore, we see that what's happening
with the long term conflict that we've had and our inability to reconciliate differences
is actually affecting natural resources, which are at the basis of the well-being of any
community. So we wanted to approach it more from a sociological perspective,
where people fighting together will never be able to sit together in order to manage
natural resources.
Dr Sahar Issa:
In 2006, Israeli forces, they attacked Jiyyeh oil plant, so this is an oil plant in South
Lebanon. And a lot of oil burned in the air, but also some oil were spilled in the sea.
The oil spill had a lot of negative consequences on different sectors. One of these
sectors were fishermen because they were not able to fish during time of conflict and
during the oil spill event.
Many communities, not only in Lebanon, but around the world, depend on natural
resources as a primary economic sector.
Dr Manal Nader:
We get our oxygen from nature. We get our water from nature. We get our food from
nature.
Dr Nivine Hasan Abbas:
Environment has a great impact on the public health of people. Nowadays, the
environmental problem is getting worse in our country, especially with the inflow of
refugees, the Syrian problem, and armed conflict in Lebanon and around us.

Dr Sahar Issa:
Livelihoods are very much affected by environmental degradation.
Dr Manal Nader:
So at the end of the day, we have to all agree that natural resources need to be
properly managed for the sustainability of any nation, and this is becoming
recognised all around the world.

Dr Roula Al Daia:
Development is also about living in a stable environment, and living in a stable
environment means a politically stable environment and an institutionally stable
environment.
Dr Manal Nader:
Polluted waters will affect all. Desertification will affect all. Low agricultural
productivity affects all. What we should actually recognise and realise is that the
management of these resources are good for the politicians, as well as the
confessions, as well as the non-political people, as well as everybody who is living in
this country and beyond, on a Mediterranean scale also. We're not saying
environmental management that Lebanon should become a protected area. No.
What we're trying to say is that they should be managed in a way that is beneficial
for all, and politics should not interfere with resource management issues.
Dr Irna van der Molen:
The results are quite remarkable on the one hand, we see direct environmental
impacts of armed conflict, and then you can think of oil pollution, marine pollution.
You can think of land degradation. Indirect impacts are those impacts that follow
from the direct impacts, such as the displacement of people or the decreased
income of those people who depend on natural resources for their livelihoods.
As long as environmental management does not have clear political priority, as long
as environmental regulations and legislation either does not exist or is not well
enforced, when there are no sufficient financial and human resources, then that
exacerbates the existing environmental problems.
Mapping and monitoring environmental degradation can help to design post-conflict
recovery plans. Similarly, we found that social vulnerability mapping can also help to
assist in post-conflict recovery and policy planning. This could be applied in
Lebanon, but also in other countries.
We need to fundamentally rethink our concept of vulnerability. I believe it is
necessary to position the concept of vulnerability much more at the heart of the
academic debate on political hybridity and fragility.
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Dr Nivine Hasan Abbas:
As a Lebanese, we are used to conflict in general in Lebanon. But when it's near
you, it will be also you can see more things closer, and you can see the problems
how it's affecting your street, yourself, your daughters, your community. So of
course, it was a motivation, also.

Dr Manal Nader:
Our nations are not known for transparency, so access to information is problematic
when it exists. Then you have the problem of the lack of information that you need to
gather from scratch. You face the lack of knowledge of the community about the
importance of what you want to do. So culturally, our communities are not ready to
understand that this is something that is essential.
Dr Roula Al Daia:
In terms of governance, of course, it's very important for the policymakers to work on
governance, to try to improve the institutional framework. Because even though we
might have a good level of education and health, but if we have bad institutions, if we
have corruptions, if we have political instability, then we will not be able to fulfill the
potential of these attributes.
Dr Manal Nader:
What we need to do is to sustain funding, sustain research activities. This is
something that we find a lot of difficulty in, so we need to resolve the conflicts and
understand why aren't they together and deciding properly, at least for themselves,
on resources that are beneficial for both parties.
Dr Sahar Issa:
More importance should be given to the environment, not only in times of conflict, but
also during peacetime. We should have more emergency plans because we don't
have until now a well-defined organisation to face disaster or for disaster
management. So I think this is one of the main action needed.
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