The COVID-19 pandemic turned into a wake-up call on a global scale. In the midst of the 21st century, we were forced to reconsider our lifestyles and our choices. Our illusion of being in control over nature was crumbled by a virus that is a few nanometers in width. We were forced into lockdowns that slowed down our rhythm while granting earth some time to breathe. Gladly, we witnessed a significant decrease in pollution and noise levels. We have seen plants and animals stepping further into places that became forbidden to them because of an imposing and threatening human occupation; and here lies our chance to reconcile with nature.
While trying to cope with the repercussions of the COVID-19 pandemic, Lebanon is also facing an unprecedented economic collapse, making the challenge even harder. To rise again, Lebanon has to rise durably. The old consumptive lifestyle has proven to be non-viable economically, socially, and environmentally. Thus, we should abandon our old production and consumption behaviors and opt for a sustainable lifestyle.
We have to admit it: sustainability is not a privilege anymore or a “trend” limited to some environmentally conscious individuals. Now and more than ever, sustainability is our only collective survival strategy.
Nevertheless, there’s hope in this ordeal. Sustainability is not expensive, nor complicated. On an individual level, it involves adopting a minimalist and functional lifestyle, consuming responsibly and locally as much as possible, reconsidering our priorities and “needs”, adopting new sustainable habits, and abandoning the “old” extravagant consumptive lifestyle, therefore integrating a novel pace of living, which is more in harmony with nature.
On a collective level, we must strategize our social and economic rise to aim at the following milestones:
- Produce locally to reduce imports while valuing the local resources and creating jobs,
- Promulgate traditional crafts (that we abandoned) using available natural products,
- Decentralize businesses and institutions to promote the socio-economic rise and empower provinces & remote regions,
- Empower and upgrade the industrial sector while implementing sustainable technologies and clean production,
- Adopt sustainable agricultural practices and policies to safeguard our environmental resources while ensuring food security,
- Reduce our consumptive bulimia (e.g. unnecessary packaging, accessory-products, etc.) to reduce waste production per capita,
- Implement recycling and reusing strategies from the smallest (households) to the largest levels (e.g. companies and institutions),
- Invest in public transportation to reduce pollution and noise, making the transport sector efficient and environmentally sound,
- Effect an energetic transition toward green and renewable energies,
- Implement ecological urban planning to metamorphose urban areas into “green & breathable cities”, reducing the pollution and enhancing the living environment of more than 80% of the Lebanese population,
- Reconsider the founding elements of housing (surface areas, energy consumption, isolation, material, etc.) and the real estate sector to preserve our remaining landscapes,
- Conserve and valorize the natural heritage as an indivisible pillar of the sustainable recovery plan of the country,
- Increase the green surfaces through afforestation, reforestation & agroforestry practices to combat climate change and environmental degradation,
- Make environmental education a priority to raise a new generation of eco-citizens with a strong sense of belonging and an authentic environmental awareness, which is vital to the revolutionary change that we are seeking for our nation.
The history of Lebanon is marked by a long record of downfalls and ascensions dating back to 12 000 years ago when the earliest civilizations of the world settled in the Levant. Hence, its fame of repeatedly rising beneath the ashes and proving to be inexhaustible and infallible.
This tumultuous history, however, has been merciless to this “little piece of heaven” and to its natural resources which are its most valuable assets. Our most cherished symbol “the Cedar” is, for instance, a living witness to the oldest legacy of “environmental” destruction in the history of civilization. In his book “The Lebanon: a history and a diary” (1860), David Urquhart described the transformation inflicted to the landscape by the successive inhabitants of Lebanon by the following: “Elsewhere man has cultivated the land, in Lebanon, he has made it”; or rather “un-made it”.
Today, and more than ever it is about time to re-make Lebanon.
So yes, we will rise again, but we shall “rise sustainably”!