Are there any cedars left in lebanon

Perhaps by approaching the cedars from these many perspectives, we may access the archives within the trees. Doing so calls for engaging with a patchwork of knowledge systems— peer-reviewed consensus-based science and resource management, but also historical religious worship, indigenous stewardship, and oral tradition.

Visualizing Climate and Loss: Losing the Cedars of Lebanon

In the past, losing a cedar meant losing commercial, military, religious, or aesthetic value. Rauwolff may have been relating knowledge expressed by his local Maronite Christian guides, or he may have believed that demand for cedar wood by ancient Empires—which used the fragrant, durable material to build temples and boats—deforested Lebanon well before the first millennium.

Historical testimonies about the cedars of Lebanon place an overwhelming emphasis on loss. Center for History and Economics Harvard University.

Cedrus libani - Wikipedia

So while authorities like the Maronite Church may have imagined a long-term plan for preserving the cedars, the decentralized nature of feudal Mount Lebanon under Ottoman rule likely allowed cultivators and farmers to remove cedars without consequence. As temperatures rise, cedrus libani no longer thrives in its ecological niche of feet above sea level. Our conception of loss has changed; today, nobody would dare put an axe to a protected cedar, but the trees have never been so vulnerable.

Wildfires hit record altitudes in A native sawfly infestation is decimating cedar buds in the Tannourine forest. Fear of losing the cedars is not unprecedented.

Climate Change Is Killing the Cedars of Lebanon

By , only a few cedar forests may remain in a small northern section of Mount Lebanon. And according to human geographer Marvin Mikesell , Maronite Christian and Druze peasants depleted cedar and fir populations by turning forest canopies on slanted mountain slopes into terraces for cultivation. Nine of the twelve existing cedar forests are already located upon summits; only three forests may escape heat by migrating higher.

As historian Diana Davis has shown, environmental declinism was inspired by an early-seventeenth century biblically-derived geological theory developed by the Irish Archbishop James Ussher.

A palynological study concluded that deforestation of Mount Lebanon occurred during the Neolithic but stopped during the Bronze Age. Their findings challenge earlier claims that the ancient Egyptians deforested the Barouk forest on Mount Lebanon later, during the Iron Age. We know that as pilgrimages to the cedars of Mount Lebanon increased in the 16th century, the Maronite Church issued an edict threatening excommunication to whomever injured the trees.

A century and a half later, the same view held. Due to rudimentary felling techniques and limited long-distance boating, cedar wood quantities were likely small and rare.

Scientific research seems to corroborate such an assessment. In spite of this, according to Harfouche, the primary deforestation of Lebanese mountain forests began with the development of Christian mountain villages in the 19th century. In North Africa and the Middle East, European colonizers accused nomadic Muslim and pagan Arab societies of straying from the settled agriculture of the Romans and Greeks.