Illegal Logging Turns Syria's Forests into 'Barren Land'

A woman on a donkey carrying wood from trees cut at the Mount Abdulaziz nature reserve outside Hasakeh. Delil SOULEIMAN / AFP
A woman on a donkey carrying wood from trees cut at the Mount Abdulaziz nature reserve outside Hasakeh. Delil SOULEIMAN / AFP
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Illegal Logging Turns Syria's Forests into 'Barren Land'

A woman on a donkey carrying wood from trees cut at the Mount Abdulaziz nature reserve outside Hasakeh. Delil SOULEIMAN / AFP
A woman on a donkey carrying wood from trees cut at the Mount Abdulaziz nature reserve outside Hasakeh. Delil SOULEIMAN / AFP

On a riverbank in war-ravaged Syria's north, felling has reduced what was once a lush forest to dispersed trees and decimated trunks poking out from dry, crumbly soil.

Twelve years of conflict that led to a spike in illegal logging, along with the effects of climate change and other factors, have eroded Syria's greenery, said AFP.

The dwindling forest on the shores of the Euphrates river "is shrinking every year", said Ahmed al-Sheikh, 40, a supermarket owner in the village of Jaabar, in the Kurdish-held part of Syria's Raqa province.

Before, "the forest would attract tourists, birds, purify the air and protect the area from dust storms", he said.

But fuel shortages and rampant poverty during the war have pushed many Syrians to chop the trees to sell or use for heating, dealing a blow to the nature surrounding Jaabar.

Its ancient citadel had made the village a popular pre-war tourist attraction, with a reforestation project launched in the mid-1990s offering rare respite from the searing heat.

"Some people cut down the trees to sell them and earn money, others to keep warm during the winter," Sheikh said.
"If this goes on, desertification will follow."

Residents told AFP they hear loggers riding motorbikes into the forest at night to cut down trees.

Even in broad daylight, young men sneak into the woods to chop trees, evading the handful of forest guards patrolling the vast, green spaces.

'No shade left'
Syria's war has killed more than 500,000 people and displaced millions.

It has also devastated the environment, triggering an "alarming" loss of forest cover across the country, Dutch peacebuilding group PAX warned in a report earlier this year.

The country has witnessed a "26-percent decrease in tree cover since 2000", according to data from Global Forest Watch.

Ten kilometers (six miles) from Jaabar, the same fate has befallen the trees of Tuwayhina.

"In my childhood, we used to come here with friends to sit under the shade of eucalyptus and pine trees," said Mohammed Ali, surrounded by tree trunks scattered across the sun-scorched earth.

"But now it is a barren land," said the 30-year-old nurse. "Now, there is no shade left, only the heat of the sun everywhere."

"The dust storms never stop, the lake is drying up and there are no trees left," Ali said, referring to Lake Assad, Syria's largest freshwater dam reservoir.

Water levels have dropped and pollution has worsened in the Euphrates and the reservoir it feeds, with the river's flow further impacted by upstream dams in Türkiye.

Deforestation in Syria is largely attributed to logging and thinning for firewood, according to the PAX report.

"Soaring fuel prices combined with massive displacement form the main driver for large-scale deforestation throughout Syria," it said.

"Civilians are cutting down trees for cooking and heating, while there are clear indications that armed groups also use illegal logging and wood sales as a source of income."

'Blanket of greenery'
The once-dense forests of Syria's west "have suffered the most degradation caused by the war", mostly from tree felling and wildfires, PAX said.

Latakia, Hama, Homs and Idlib provinces lost at least 36 percent of their trees in the decade following 2011, when the conflict erupted, according to PAX.

In the northeast, authorities have "no precise data" about the damage but its impact is "obvious", Ibrahim Asaad, who co-chairs the Kurdish semi-autonomous administration's environment body, told AFP.

The area was the country's breadbasket in pre-war times, but has witnessed severe droughts and reduced rainfall in recent years.

On the outskirts of Hasakeh, a city further east, the Mount Abdulaziz reserve has been plagued by dry spells and some illegal logging.

The trees had provided a "blanket of greenery", said Hussein Saleh al-Helou, a 65-year-old resident of the village of Al-Naseri.

But now "there is no water, the trees near the village have withered... and people have started cutting them", he told AFP, surrounded by vast barren lands and hills.

"Logging has had a huge impact on the village," Helou said.

"The temperature has risen, and the weather is not the same any more."



China’s Frigid Northeast Thrives on ‘Little Potato’ Tourism Boom

This picture taken on December 17, 2024 shows people having picture with a snowman sculpture in Harbin, China’s Northeastern Heilongjiang province. (AFP)
This picture taken on December 17, 2024 shows people having picture with a snowman sculpture in Harbin, China’s Northeastern Heilongjiang province. (AFP)
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China’s Frigid Northeast Thrives on ‘Little Potato’ Tourism Boom

This picture taken on December 17, 2024 shows people having picture with a snowman sculpture in Harbin, China’s Northeastern Heilongjiang province. (AFP)
This picture taken on December 17, 2024 shows people having picture with a snowman sculpture in Harbin, China’s Northeastern Heilongjiang province. (AFP)

Animal ears and pom-poms on fuzzy hats adorn tourists' heads on the streets of the frigid northeastern Chinese city of Harbin, which is enjoying a surge in visitors driven by social media.

Photos and videos taken around the city's landmarks flood platforms such as TikTok counterpart Douyin and Instagram-esque Xiaohongshu -- many featuring tourists from the warmer south.

They're affectionately known as "southern little potatoes", a reference to their alleged smaller stature and cutesy winter gear that contrast with the area's stereotypically coarse character.

A search for "southern little potatoes visit the north" racked up more than 428,000 notes on Xiaohongshu.

That's where Chen Xiting, who works in e-commerce in the southern province of Guangdong, said she was inspired to visit.

"It's the quickest way young people get trip recommendations," said Chen.

She said she had noticed a sizeable number of fellow southerners.

"I heard quite a bit of Cantonese, which we're very familiar with, today at tourist sites and on the street," said the 29-year-old, wearing a hat with dog ears and with only her face exposed to the air.

Liu Rong, a student from Sichuan, said the city's push for more southern tourists was clear from the surge in videos about Harbin he often watched with his wife.

"These years, especially this year, Harbin's cultural tourism has placed a lot of importance on paying attention to us southerners," Liu said.

- 'Little potatoes' go north -

Harbin is the capital of Heilongjiang, one of three provinces that make up the "Dongbei" (northeast) region, where temperatures can reach -30 degrees Celsius (-22 degrees Fahrenheit) during winter.

Bordered by Russia and North Korea, it is one of China's poorest provinces, outperforming only neighboring Jilin, Gansu, Hainan island and sparsely populated Tibet, Qinghai and Ningxia.

But the first five months of 2024 saw the operating income of Heilongjiang's cultural, sports and entertainment industries rise nearly 60 percent year-on-year, according to official data.

Tourists spent 154 billion yuan ($21 billion) in the first half of 2024, up 171 percent from the first half of 2023.

Popular novels and dramas set in the northeast have also helped spark a travel boom to the region.

"A lot of southerners, which we call 'little potatoes', came over here for travel and made our Harbin very trendy," Emily Liu, a local tour guide, told AFP.

The online fame has been good for the travel business, said 30-year-old Jiang Zhonglong, energetically gesticulating in front of his tripod just meters away from Liu.

He started working for a Harbin-based travel agency three years ago, during the Covid-19 pandemic, and said business was now much better.

"So many little friends, southern potatoes, tourists have all come here," he said.

One night this month, the city's commercial district of Central Street saw a steady stream of people walking on the cobblestone path under bright yellow lights.

Ling, a 38-year-old from the coastal eastern province of Zhejiang, was there with his wife to "daka", a phrase that means "punching in" but now describes visiting popular spots to share photos on social media.

"We often scroll through (video sharing platform) Douyin and such. We often see videos promoting Harbin," said Ling, who asked to be identified only by his surname.

- 'My hometown is popular' -

Ling told AFP he'd believed negative stereotypes about Dongbei in the past.

"But we came here and found that things are pretty decent," he said.

"I've been yearning for a different cultural experience compared to where I come from -- the weather and style are completely different."

Nearby, a steady stream of people ducked inside a shop selling goods from Russia -- just a stone's throw away.

Foot traffic to the shopping street has tripled since 2022, said store manager Zhangzhang, who has worked in the area for more than 10 years and asked to be identified by her nickname.

"My hometown has suddenly become popular," she said, adding she was "extremely proud".

She said the store last year started selling more hats and scarves for travelers who "didn't pack enough layers" -- including those printed with the region's classic red florals.

"I think that this can help lift the economy of our Dongbei."