C'est trees te

Lots of good stuff in Al Akhbar today.

Here's an article about the increase in tree felling by poor people in rural areas, further reducing the already tiny forested area in Lebanon. As usual, this is linked to cost of living and to the increase in prices of gas and mazout as people cut trees to heat themselves during the winter. This has been happening regularly. During the period 1975 to 1991, the breakdown of the state meant that drug crops flourished in the Bekaa, and people got richer. They stopped cutting trees and the forests expanded. Then the Syrians struck a deal with the US and hashish growing was forbidden. The forests retracted, because people became poorer. And now they are retracting further, in the whole of the country, because of the increase in fuel prices.