AIN DARA, Lebanon: Braving death threats, Abdallah Haddad fought for years to shut down quarries near his village in Lebanon. The 61-year-old said he and fellow activists received “good news” at the end of July about the gutted mountain in Ain Dara they had worked to protect — a Lebanese court ordered 16 quarries out of 17 to close. But the victory was short-lived.
Just weeks later, the quarries near his village in central Lebanon — a short drive away from a famed cedar reserve — started operating again, Haddad said. In 25 years, more than two million cubic metres were exploited in the area, in what Haddad calls a “crime” against the mountain.
“Most of the operators don’t have a permit, or work with falsified or expired documents,” he said.
When he returned to Lebanon after years abroad, Haddad joined a group of locals, including the Ain Dara mayor, who were pushing back against the quarries. “Since we started in 2016, we have organised sit-ins, lobbied and launched legal proceedings on six occasions,” said the activist, who used to work in the banking sector in France. It is a risky undertaking.
“I’ve received phone calls from strangers threatening to ‘break my legs’ or warning me not to go to Ain Dara and threatening to kill me,” he said. When the verdict was handed down on July 26, dozens of soldiers and police officers deployed to the areas where “armed men” were often seen near the quarries.
Military men, some wearing balaclavas, sealed off the banned operations with red wax, including one area belonging to a powerful political figure. But soon “most of them had started working again,” Haddad said.
A boom in quarrying started with the long reconstruction that followed Lebanon’s 1975-1990 civil war.
The activity became a top post-conflict industry. Each year, Lebanon exports hundreds of thousands of tonnes of cement. There are more than 1,300 quarries over 50 square kilometres in the country, according to a 2017 satellite survey conducted by the Lebanese army. They are regulated by a 2002 decree, but an Environment Ministry official said “only a dozen of these sites” follow rules. — AFP
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