Holistic conservation of bio-cultural diversity in coastal Lebanon: A landscape approach

Abstract

Bridging terrestrial and marine ecosystems, Mediterranean coastal littorals are important floral and faunal habitats and an important component of the traditional Mediterranean landscape mosaic. The expanding urban footprint in Mediterranean littorals is increasingly threatening semi-natural sites and agriculture in coastal landscape. This paper proposes a holistic landscape approach to the sustainable planning of coastal littorals arguing that it is more likely to succeed because it is integrative of the concerns for safeguarding environmental resources and conservation of biodiversity but also responsive to socio-economic concerns of securing agricultural livelihood and providing for the cultural needs for open/green spaces by the growing inhabitants of coastal cities. The challenge is to combine protection for the three seemingly disparate activities. The town of Damour on the Mediterranean coast of Lebanon is taken as a case study. The wide coastal, banana cultivated plain makes for an exceptionally verdant landscape and scenic reprieve in an otherwise predominantly urbanized coastline. The methodology of ecological landscape design is applied to secure a holistic reading of the physical setting and propose a holistic, integrative conceptual model for the protection of coastal biodiversity that is ecologically sensitive and in synergy with agricultural and cultural uses.