Landscape Approach to Bio-Cultural Diversity Conservation in Rural Lebanon

Abstract

Traditional rural landscapes in Lebanon as elsewhere in the eastern Mediterranean are as much a product of geographical setting and natural processes as they are of cultural modification and adaptations over time. A rich and diverse mosaic of woodland patches, degraded maquis scrubland, terraced perennial cropping of olives trees and vineyards, the rural landscape is characteristically a combination of ‘natural’ and ‘cultural’ ecosystems. Traditional rural landscapes combine agricultural, silvicultural and pastoral uses within an integrated management system. Multifunctional in use, sustainable environmentally, valued culturally, traditional rural landscapes are well adapted to poor the degraded environmental conditions in marginal terrain which are suitable for little else (Makhzoumi, 1997). Nevertheless, assessment and valuation and similarly development strategies fail to recognize their specificity. Attempts by the state in the 1950s to ‘modernize’ agriculture for the most part focused on monoculture farming and cash crops through blanket agricultural policies that do not recognize the value of traditional production systems and vernacular management practices. Nature conservation strategies have similarly sidestepped traditional rural landscapes. National strategies for nature conservation since the 1990s have prioritized on the protection of ‘native’ species, cedar forests and natural ecosystems, disregarding the potential of traditional rural landscapes as wildlife habitats, a repository of Lebanon’s exceptional biodiversity. Research and development of rural regions are similarly narrow in approach, divided between the focus of scientists and engineers on environmental problems and that of social scientists on social and economic betterment. State management and administration replicates the disciplinary divide in national policies because ministries prioritize on one or another component of rural landscapes, for example agricultural production, environment, socio-economic betterment, with little coordination in planning and management. In combination, fragmentary planning and management fail to address the specificity of marginal rural settings as a unique melange, part nature and part culture, tangible physicality and intangible socio-cultural.