Heat, Drought, Fires Threaten Lebanon’s Northern Forests 

A general view of a forest area in Kobayat in Lebanon’s northern Akkar region, on September 1, 2023. (AFP)
A general view of a forest area in Kobayat in Lebanon’s northern Akkar region, on September 1, 2023. (AFP)
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Heat, Drought, Fires Threaten Lebanon’s Northern Forests 

A general view of a forest area in Kobayat in Lebanon’s northern Akkar region, on September 1, 2023. (AFP)
A general view of a forest area in Kobayat in Lebanon’s northern Akkar region, on September 1, 2023. (AFP)

Heatwaves, low rainfall and the threat of wildfires are compounding the woes of people in the forested north of Lebanon, a country where economic pain has long taken prominence over environmental concerns.

After a blistering and dry summer, residents of the mountainous Akkar region near the Syrian border are voicing fears about climate change and water scarcity.

Farmer Abdullah Hammud, 60, has spent his life in the green hills of Akkar, growing everything from tomatoes to figs, but says environmental problems are now hurting his livelihood.

"I've never seen it this hot," Hammud said, looking at a field where he was planning to grow cabbage. "We lost part of the crops."

With Lebanon's mains water supply unreliable at best, he depends on a nearby spring for irrigation, but worries that the supply is falling.

Because trucking in water for his house and farm is not an option, he said, "if the water ran out, we would have to leave".

Rainfall has been below average this year in Lebanon, Mohamad Kanj from the meteorological department told AFP.

A 13-day heatwave last month was "the most severe recorded in terms of the number of days, the area affected and the exceptional temperatures".

Akkar was already one of Lebanon's most disadvantaged regions before the national economy imploded in late 2019, plunging much of the population into poverty.

A report from the American University of Beirut last year found the region also has only low-to-moderate resilience to climate change.

Devastating forest fires raged two years ago near the town of Kobayat, where houses are nestled among the trees in surrounding hills.

A 15-year-old died while helping to battle the flames.

"The fires affected us a lot," said Najla Chahine, 58, a former teacher. "We feared for our lives."

Green activism

Since those fires, "there's more awareness", said Chahine, noting however that the local community needs to work harder to face environmental threats because "the state is absent".

She and her son Sami were on a hike as part of a recent local festival.

Several dozen people clambered up and down tree-covered slopes carpeted with dry pine needles and cones.

Sami Chahine, 13, said he has tried to "raise awareness as much as possible" about environmental issues among his friends.

He expressed worry about fires, but also other ecological threats such as pollution, in a country where people often burn trash at informal dump sites and recycling is sporadic.

The hike passed several local springs, one reduced to just a trickle, another totally dry.

Antoine Daher, head of the local non-governmental Council of Environment -- Kobayat, blamed the water shortages on both a lack of rain and rising demand, urging people to reduce consumption.

Daher said his association set up Lebanon's first fire watchtower some 25 years ago and had sought to educate people on ecological topics.

Despite Lebanon's devastating economic crisis, he said, "we mustn't see the environment as a luxury".

Peak fire season

Fires remain a major threat, and Khaled Taleb from the Akkar Trail association was training a group on how to prevent and fight them.

"We are currently at the peak of the fire season," he said, warning that the risk only abates in late October.

His association, which now counts 15 volunteers, turned to firefighting in 2020 after major blazes hit the Akkar region.

The area is covered with 200 square kilometers (77 square miles) of forest and home to 73 out of Lebanon's 76 tree species, he said.

The fires near Kobayat in 2021 alone "destroyed more than 1,800 hectares (4,450 acres)", he said, recalling that water access was a major problem for his team.

In October 2019, the Beirut government's failure to contain devastating wildfires was among the triggers of an unprecedented, nationwide anti-government protest movement.

Lebanon "doesn't have the logistical capabilities to deal with a huge fire", said Taleb, whose group works alongside the civil defense and other first responders.

However, he expressed optimism at the local community's willingness to pitch in.

"We weren't born firefighters," he said, adding that until three years ago, "we didn't know anything about firefighting".

"But our main priority now is to protect the forest from all threats."



10 Endangered Black Rhinos Sent from S.Africa to Mozambique

Kenya Wildlife Services veterinarians and rangers rush to aid a sedated female black Rhinoceros that has been selected for translocation to the Segera Rhino Sanctuary from the Lake Nakuru National Park on June 07, 2025. (Photo by Tony KARUMBA / AFP)
Kenya Wildlife Services veterinarians and rangers rush to aid a sedated female black Rhinoceros that has been selected for translocation to the Segera Rhino Sanctuary from the Lake Nakuru National Park on June 07, 2025. (Photo by Tony KARUMBA / AFP)
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10 Endangered Black Rhinos Sent from S.Africa to Mozambique

Kenya Wildlife Services veterinarians and rangers rush to aid a sedated female black Rhinoceros that has been selected for translocation to the Segera Rhino Sanctuary from the Lake Nakuru National Park on June 07, 2025. (Photo by Tony KARUMBA / AFP)
Kenya Wildlife Services veterinarians and rangers rush to aid a sedated female black Rhinoceros that has been selected for translocation to the Segera Rhino Sanctuary from the Lake Nakuru National Park on June 07, 2025. (Photo by Tony KARUMBA / AFP)

Ten black rhinos have been moved from South Africa to Mozambique to secure breeding of the critically endangered animals that became locally extinct 50 years ago, conservationists said Thursday.

The five male and five female rhinos were transferred to Mozambique's Zinave National Park in a 48-hour road trip last week, said the Peace Parks Foundation, which took part in the translocation.

"It was necessary to introduce these 10 to make the population viable," communication coordinator Lesa van Rooyen told AFP.

The new arrivals will "secure the first founder population of black rhinos since becoming locally extinct five decades ago,” South Africa's environment ministry, which was also involved, said in a statement.

Twelve black rhinos had previously been sent from South Africa to Zinave in central Mozambique but the population was still not viable for breeding, Van Rooyen said.

Twenty-five white rhinos, which are classified as less threatened, were also translocated in various operations.

The global black rhino population dropped by 96 percent between 1970 and 1993, reaching a low of only 2,300 surviving in the wild, according to the International Rhino Foundation.

Decades of conservation efforts allowed the species to slowly recover and the population is estimated at 6,421 today.

Once abundant across sub-Saharan Africa, rhino numbers fell dramatically due to hunting by European colonizers and large-scale poaching, with their horns highly sought after on black markets particularly in Asia.

Mozambique's population of the large animals was depleted during the 15-year civil war, which ended in 1992 and pushed many people to desperate measures to "survive in very difficult circumstances", van Rooyen said.

Years of rewilding efforts have established Zinave as Mozambique’s only national park home to the "Big Five" game animals -- elephant, rhino, lion, leopard and buffalo.