LibGuides: Forests in Lebanon: Home

Introduction

This guide highlights core print and electronic Library resources on the topic of forests in Lebanon including history of reforestation, afforestation, and deforestation. Use the tabs on the side to browse the different resources.

According to the Food and Agriculture Organization's (FAO) Global Forest Resources Assessment (FRA) 2005, “a Forest is a land spanning more than 0.5 hectares with trees higher than 5 meters and a canopy cover of more than 10%, or trees able to reach these thresholds in situ. It does not include land 70 that is predominantly under agriculture or urban use”.

Glossary:

Reforestation: the reestablishment of forest cover either naturally (by natural seeding, coppice, or root suckers) or artificially (by direct seeding or planting) -note reforestation usually maintains the same forest type and is done promptly after the previous stand or forest was removed

Afforestation: the establishment of a forest or stand in an area where the preceding vegetation or land use was not forest

Deforestation: the removal of a forest stand where the land is put to a nonforest use

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Source: Dictionary of Forestry (1998) published by the Society of American Foresters, 5400 Grosvenor Lane, Bethesda, MD 20814-2198. Not for further reproduction.

General Book on Afforestation

Afforestation in Arid Zones by R. N. Kaul (Editor)
Publication Date: 1970
The increasing world population is already causing intensive pressure on the most productive areas of the earth's surface. Hopes of improved living standards, if realised, will increase the pressure still further. The need to make better use of less productive areas thus becomes an urgent priority for human endeavour. In this respect, the arid and semi-arid regions of the world, occupying about 11,000 million acres or 4,500 million hectares, roughly one third of the tota11and surface, pose a constant challenge to man's technological skill. Though the possibilities of economic use of the real deserts are inherently limited, there remain vast areas with less extreme conditions where sustained research is capable of yielding substantial gains in pro ductivity. The problem is so large that it can be solved only by the coordinated efforts of workers in many countries and many disciplines. Forestry has a special part to play, not only for its potential value for wood production but still more for the beneficial effects of shelter from desiccating winds which so commonly accompany arid conditions. Mr. KA UL is to be congratulated on his initiative to pool the results of research on afforestation in arid zones in many parts of the world, and to present them in a single volume in the form of separate monographs.