Climate change devours ancient Lebanese cedar trees

TANNOURINE: High up in Lebanon’s mountains, the lifeless grey trunks of dead cedar trees stand stark in the deep green forest, witnesses of the climate change that has ravaged them.

Often dubbed “Cedars of God”, the tall evergreens hark back millenia and are a national icon in the small Mediterranean country.

But as temperatures rise and rain and snowfall decrease, Lebanon’s graceful cedars are increasingly under attack by a tiny green grub that feeds off the youngest trees.

At a 1,800m altitude in the natural reserve of Tannourine in the north of Lebanon, ashen tree skeletons jut out of the forest near surviving cedars centuries old.

“It’s as if a fire swept through the forest,” said Nabil Nemer, a Lebanese specialist in forest insects.

Huge cedar forests were once felled for their timber. Egyptian pharaohs used it to make boats and King Solomon allegedly used it to build his temple in Jerusalem.

But today’s culprits lie underground, just centimetres below the tree trunk: bright green, wriggling larvae no larger than a grain of rice.

Since the late 1990s, infant cedar sawflies have eaten away at the forest in Tannourine and other natural reserves in northern Lebanon.

Cedar sawflies have been around for thousands of years. They mate in spring and lay their eggs on the cedar tree trunks, where grubs hatch and feast on cedar needles.

In the past, the larvae would then head back into the ground to hibernate for up to four years, before emerging as winged adult sawflies.

But a warming earth has disrupted this cycle, especially in the Mediterranean where “climate change is more intense”, said Wolfgang Cramer of the Mediterranean Experts on Environmental and Climate Change.

As scientists fight to prevent cedar deaths, the government is racing to replenish the country’s forests. Since 2012, it has helped plant over two million new trees, agriculture ministry official Chadi Mohanna said.

Civil society is also playing a role. Since 2008, non-governmental group Jouzour Lubnan has put 300,000 new trees in the ground.

“Cedars have survived millions of years. They can take on climate change and adapt,” said Jouzour cofounder Magda Bou Dagher Kharrat.

— AFP Nurturing nature: A Jouzour Loubnan volunteer placing rocks next to a newly planted young cedar during a tree-planting initiative in the Jaj Cedar Reserve Forest in the Lebanon mountains.