click image to enlarge
1 - Tell us about yourself? Your training? Your profession? Your activities? I am president of an NGO Mawassem Khair (Harvest charity) whose sole mission is to discover and preserve this heritage of biodiversity and richness of our nature.
Member of the Lebanese community in Senegal, I started my actions in Africa prior to dedicate myself exclusively to the Middle East. ... There, alongside my brother Haidar El Ali, I am committed, as part of the association Océanium in defense of dolphins and protected species, then in the reforestation effort. In Lebanon
then, when I first went there only five years, accompanying my father on the death of my mother. Lebanon has been a revelation to me: I discovered a "Sacred Land "Capital of Biodiversity in the Middle East, and I since then engaged in protecting its rich ecological heritage.
My NGO, Mawassem Khair, Harvest of Charity, in cooperation with UNIFIL, has been involved in defusing bombs over 4000 South Lebanon, reforestation of the region and that the fight against fires, especially in raising awareness and educating the public about environmental problems.
My big project is to upgrade my current reforestation initiatives in Lebanon to assist municipalities in waste and sewage, and create a news agency dedicated to sustainable development and eco-health issues in Lebanon.
2-What can you say about the rivers in Lebanon?
Lebanon, unlike its neighbors, has abundant water resources. Its rivers are a reflection of the many paradoxes of our pays.Que whether our water, our mountains, plants and flowers, our coastline, our migratory birds, or wildlife
- rush treasure of biodiversity Middle Eastern and permanent mess caused by greed - Ecosystem Lebanon paid a heavy price because of the easy solutions and the lack of involvement of a government still unstable, more worried and concerned about maintaining its security issues, that sustainable development is an integral party yet human security.
Lebanon is composed of more than 2000 rivers and 40 rivers of which 17 are perennial as the Nahr Litani, Orontes, Nahr Awali, Nahr Ibrahim, Nahr Abu Ali, and 23 seasonal.
The main pollutants are agricultural in nature, with nitrate and phosphorus from fertilizers and pesticides of different nature Industrial gaps discharge of sewage and waste finally physical of any kind. Water is the greatest wealth for decades to come, protect it to derive the benefits tomorrow.
3 - What are the activities that pollute (the causes of pollution)?
What a question! Any pollution in Lebanon. Agriculture, like I said earlier, with its overdose of pesticides is certainly not the last factor. Do you know that in France, 70 products have been accepted as pesticides while in Lebanon we have over 130 registered, let alone products Contraband! Industrial activity in the vicinity of cities has a large share of responsibility, by getting rid of its surplus toxic paints, motor oil etc.. Household waste, sanitary waste, discharges from hospital waste, disposal of sewage into rivers, urban or rural areas are a scourge. Septic systems in our homes and leave the waste seeping feces in the groundwater. The various motor oil industries or cars are highly carcinogenic due to lack of facilities for their recovery. Finally, underline our bad habit of any discharge into rivers after our family picnics.
4 - Are there any rivers more polluted than others? The rivers less (or not) contaminated?
Yes, Nahr Ghadir through southern Beirut could beat the world record for the most polluted river,
( look at these two pictures, how the river is a paradise through the Chouf ...) 
( and how it happens in poor neighborhoods and industrial south Beirut, ending in our common Mediterranean Sea )
and cleaner in my opinion would be the Wazani river, as there is very little agriculture in the vicinity, there are even fish and abundant wildlife.
What we can say about it is that there is disparity in the dosage of pollutants on different rivers. The Ministry of Environment has studied in 2006 and their observation in five catchments indicates that the rivers Damour, of Awali, Litani and Beirut deficient in oxygen, causing eutrophication, which is mainly caused by increased levels of nitrate and phosphate and a negative influence on the life of the water.
Indeed, because of enrichment, water plants such as algae grow intensively. Therefore, the water absorbs less light and some aerobic bacteria become more active. These bacteria lowers oxygen levels to such a level that only anaerobic bacteria can be active. This makes life impossible in the water for fish and other organisms.
waste that can be decomposed by bacteria are greedy for oxygen. However
the application of nitrogen is important in the rivers of Damour and Awali.
In addition, the Awali River seeks phosphorus, unlike the rivers of the Litani and Beirut. Unfortunately, this imbalance ecosystem of rivers because of epidemics.
( Look at the wealth of biodiversity around our waterways )
5 - It is said that the Mediterranean is the most polluted sea in the world. What proportion of this environmental disaster in Lebanon?
Whoever bathes in the Mediterranean Sea has strong chances of finding garbage, and it rises to the north, the concentrations are high because the current that brings everything back from Tyre to Tripoli.
There are 33 units of waste per square meter of water, not to mention the damage caused by plastics, combined with the jellyfish feed our turtles, dolphins and migrating birds. The state
Ghadir River crossing south of Beirut, our mountains of garbage in Saida, and the Ras al Ayn above the water source that feeds the entire city of Tyre, three of them summarize the entire environmental problems in Lebanon.
(Bon Appetit, these fish filled with heavy metals and all kinds of toxic will be on your plate soon. Click on the picture to give you an account)
All these wastes will throw themselves into the sea A sea already widely polluted due to the destruction of hydrocarbon reservoirs in the central Jiyeh, spewing more than 15,000 tons of oil on our coastline. In addition to our lives and our homes, our nature has sustained heavy damage and they persist to this day.
reconstruction after the war was characterized by an overuse of water and especially in the coastal sand, real filter to prevent any salinity and marine pollution back in our rivers. Chemical bombs are found in our groundwater, and finally, are partly responsible for forest fires.
The political fragility of Lebanon turns into a dump.
Lebanon is in the confluence of the traffic of oil tankers who blithely dump all their surplus. Each year, 400,000 tons of oil were discharged illegally into the Mediterranean, up to 10 grams per liter of oil.
sources of pollution are the most direct and river systems that drain wastewater from areas urban and dump them at sea When will we finally our sewage wastewater?
The Mediterranean is the world's most polluted, cleaning must be a priority of the Union for the Mediterranean (UPM).
Everybody understood the interdependencies in ecology: a plastic bag that falls can be found in Saida in Marseille.
6 What are the consequences of such pollution on the environment and the health of citizens?
I was always struck by the high rate Cancer in Lebanon, while our diet close to the Mediterranean diet is the best in the world. The water pollution in Lebanon is certainly a cause.
pollution of rivers is a real health hazard, the proximity of houses on the river through the towns that the outpouring of PCB products, or polychlorinated biphenyls, classified as persistent organic pollutants (POPS) and used as additives in industrially paints, inks and oils mechanical, are poorly biodegradable, carcinogenic and hyper.
bacteria, viruses, protozoa and parasitic worms that grow in sewage and untreated sewage and access to drinking water of poor quality (virtually everywhere in Lebanon), cause all sorts of diseases (diarrhea, dysentery, gastroenteritis, etc.).. In addition to cancer, many patients are affected by hepatitis A and typhoid. This is true further north and south (areas receiving drinking water sparingly). We still drinking in these regions of rainwater stored in concrete tanks throughout the year without any form of treatment.
Finally, water-soluble radioactive compounds can cause cancer, malformations among newborns and genetic changes and are therefore water pollutants very dangerous. The news speaks of highly radioactive used in agriculture, containing a cobalt-36 source of -60 can kill a person in minutes. This product should be used for a project to fight against the flies which destroy crops, particularly apples. I really find this information very disturbing. All forms of pollution in water and then eventually affect our health. How can we reasonably believe that only fish of the rivers are dying and that this pollution will save us?
7 - What is the responsibility of government in the fight against pollution?
I do not want to heap too much blame the Lebanese government on the one hand is struggling to survive in an internal political context and regional complicated, and the other dares not take courageous steps for fear that would contravene the interests of farmers, already hard hit by the crisis. Such an option would lose even more credit to rural populations.
Reports CNRS attached to the Prime Minister are formal and are the specific details of all forms of pollution in our agriculture and in our water sources. The actions are known by our scientists but social stability already oh so fragile in our country, binds the government. Who will dare to touch the subsidies on tobacco that will burn, or impose a farming and working for an environmental Lebanon?
What is the responsibility of citizens who do not pay their water bills while increasing its speed, which dumps all its trash in our rivers? How many mayors have diverted drilling licenses of municipalities in their house? Environmental, responsibility lies primarily with our priests and "sayyid" in our cities, our teachers. The work must be done at the level of civil society to empower citizens to achieve by conducting effective public awareness campaigns and provided to restore the balance of water distribution in different regions and to ensure better management of public funds.
The main effort must be made by the State which shall remain exemplary for our municipalities so poor in financial means eventually be mobilized. (It is not forbidden to dream).
(that is to keep Lebanon Paradise Fountain and the Middle East we are fighting)
8 - Tell us about your next (or rather today?) Project?
Three projects are close to my heart.
The first is to clean the Nahr Ghadir down the Chouf to cross the neighborhoods of south Beirut, before it flows into the sea The river is a "poison street", and focuses all forms of pollution that exist in Lebanon.
It contains very high concentrations of heavy metals, nitrate, bacteria, a source of disease for local residents. To clean
the river effectively, it is imperative to educate at the same time the farmers that supply gardening Beirut using pesticides and fertilizers in high doses, manufacturers of the Chouf region and from the airport, which use the river as a dustbin their toxic products, and finally the highest population of all of Lebanon, who lives in these districts and who is throwing his trash, or its waste water.
My second project is an extensive reforestation program.
My third is to add two reserves or national parks in the program of the Ministry of Environment. One was Forest pine Jezinne, the second this magnificent forest rich in biodiversity wadi hjer leaving Zawtar in Majdal in the Nabatiyah, and develop ecotourism.
this
or this: Which Lebanon do we want?
0 comments:
Post a Comment