Daily Star - Children Plant Trees At Beirut Pine Forest

BEIRUT: It was a beautiful morning at Beirut’s Pine Forest Tuesday where eighty-one EB3 students (4th graders) from College Sacré-Cœur Gemayzé anxiously gathered around to plant more than 30 pine trees. The students also planted two medlar trees which will provide a source of food for the different species of birds living in the forest.
Beirut’s Pine Forest was initially rehabilitated by the Regional Council of Ile-de-France some 20 years ago. But now, a Lebanese NGO called TERRE Liban has taken over the task, while simultaneously raising awareness about the importance of environmental conservation in schools across the country. The NGO was founded in 1994 and has previously done extensive work at the Baabda Forest.
Diane Azar, a young project coordinator for TERRE Liban, said that all of the projects could not have been possible without the help of the Beirut Municipality, which has been devoting generous funds for ecological projects for the past six years.
The young troops were led through the forest by their science teacher Berthe Damien, who was very enthusiastic about her students’ ecological adventure. She said that the project began over a year ago when the children planted pine seeds at school while they were still in third grade.
As the school year went by, the children patiently watched their seeds turn into tiny pine sprouts that were soon ready to be planted in a forest.
Damien said the students would be coming back to check on the progress of the trees for the next couple of years.
Zahra Wahid welcomed the students at the Green House of the Beirut Pine Forest, which she runs with TERRE Liban. The Green House is a place where ecological knowledge is transmitted to young generations daily.
Wahid said that more than 50 students from different schools visit the forest every day. She also said that she is noticing a promising change in the way the Lebanese people approach nature nowadays.
As the Sacré-Cœur students spread out in the forest wearing their bright yellow hats, they looked like experts while searching for good spots to plant their sprouts.
Asked if this was his first time planting trees, one young boy named Moustafa answered with confidence: “Oh no. I have done this many times before with my school.”
As for his classmate Eliane, she wisely claimed that without trees there would be no oxygen, and that she and her classmates would not be able to grow up if the air was not clean.
Wahid reminded the students that the forest was a public place. In other words she said addressing the students, “this forest and these trees belong to every one of you and that is why we need to take care of them together.”
As students left the sprouts behind to grow at their own pace, Wahid told The Daily Star that the aim of TERRE Liban was of course to raise awareness about the environment. However, she also revealed that TERRE Liban has a hidden objective, which is to bring together Lebanese people from different backgrounds and religions under the harmony of nature.