Patrons, Clients and Civil Society: A Case Study of Environmental Politics in Postwar Lebanon

Abstract

Moreover, with the return of peace to the country, the overwhelming priority of the government has been to promote the reconstruction process, an imperative that has relegated many environmental issues to the backburner. Industrial pollution remains a serious issue virtually untouched by government regulations, quarrying has gone on with impunity carving out whole sections of Lebanon's beautiful mountain heritage often to be dumped into the sea as part of the many private sector-led land reclamation projects, and Lebanon's Mediterranean coastline, ostensibly publicly owned, has been increasingly encroached upon by private developers. Yet, it is also undoubtedly true that environmental concerns have become a more prominent part of the 'public domain'. Lebanon now has a Ministry of the Environment, created in 1993; in response to the emergence of local environmental NGOs in the postwar world, the government has also sanctioned the creation of the Lebanese Environmental Forum (LEF), a national NGO environmental coordinating committee; and, in partnership with many of those NGOs, it has also become increasingly involved in issues of conservation through the creation of numerous protected areas. Further distinguishing Lebanon from its neighbors has been the establishment of a local office of