"إليسار نيوز" Elissar News

نفتح في "إليسار نيوز" الباب أمام مساهمات القراء والصحافيين اللبنانيين، وفي هذا المجال كتب الصحافي Karim El Aref و A. Hagge هذا المقال الهام، نشاركه على موقعنا لأهميته!

The #Real Challenge

With Lebanon\\\\\\\s current ecosystems which keep deteriorating year after year, decade after decade, and without exaggeration on all levels including its coast, animal preservation, deforestation etc. While virtually speaking little-to nothing has been seriously done on a governmental level – since the country’s independence - to preserve the country\\\\\\\s unique and dare we say astonishing nature, the urgency of the whole issue demands immediate attention.

There’s an old funny Russian saying that’s goes as follows: “if the mountain won’t head towards the prophet, the prophet then shall head towards the mountain” … the” mountain” being the rampant pollution while the “prophet” is the ‘’long awaited solution’’.

The hashtag

A few weeks ago, an online trend (similar to that of the very well known ‘’ice bucket challenge”) came out of nowhere, causing a sensation among the small yet impactful online community which is spreading far and wide, thus reaching out across the globe with hash tags such as #clean up challenge, #trashtag …

Individuals and groups are actively taking part in the challenge described by many as the first real and beneficial challenge: it consists of actively taking part in cleaning out the trash of any particular area (most notably green areas) affected by the scattered rubbish, carelessly thrown and ignored for years!

The last few days, “mother earth” was not only pleased but surprised by the sudden “cleaning fever rush” that prompted the act of an inspired online population to participate in the #trashtag challenge… to name a few, Vietnam, Philippines, Nepal, India, Argentina and many more countries from all around the globe as we write are joining in the mentioned #challenge.

Lebanon not being an exception, a tiny yet ambitious independent group of people have decided to take part in this noble task/challenge… with their limited resources and without any sponsorship, and without expecting any kind of reward apart from spreading out the message and awareness, they managed to clean up the trash left by the “nature lovers” if it be families, campers and so on…

Just imagine, from a small part of a spot photographed below, located in Aramoun, a relatively speaking huge amount of waste was collected and disposed:  plastic cups and bags (which tend to badly harm and pollute the soil) glass bottles (they tend to increase the risk of fire especially during the summer), in total around 18 big trash bags were collected in an area less than 10 Square meters!

The worrying and sad part is that, only a small and insignificant percentage of the country’s society genuinely cares for Lebanon’s severely damaged ecosystem, where – on a daily basis – ancient mountains are being devoured by crushers, rivers polluted by the factories resulting in toxic waste, without the mention of the illegal and reckless hunting activities of the country’s almost extinct wildlife.

Before suggesting any ideas for a possible solution we should ask ourselves first an important question: who is to blame? Is it the preceding Governments? Or is it the fault of the people in not respecting and seriously appreciating Mother Nature! There’s a well-known saying which goes by:  every nation deserves the Government it gets; so one can say that both are responsible and to blame since sadly said, people are careless about their surroundings and most indifferent to the environment, and not at all affected outdoors but are meticulous about their own self-designated spaces and homes… should we fear to wonder if these nasty attributes are culturally associated? Or at least heading to and becoming a part of?!

How and what should be done so we can escape this “never-ending loop”?

In order to raise a strong and healthy tree, it is always essential to firstly and most importantly take a good and careful care of the soil where its roots lay… in our case, A most important yet ignored aspect that should be strongly and efficiently targeted  are the children (be it at home/schools – at least 1 hour per week should be dedicated to teach kids for they can then learn to appreciate their natural environment as well as the introduction of “cleaning field trips’’ to encourage the students by both public and private schools to include within their extracurricular activities);  also the media should also play an important if not essential role in highlighting and raising the awareness by showcasing and delivering material regarding such a crucial plight, in order to prepare our future’s generation for the extraordinary upcoming ecological issues, a generation that should feel ashamed for throwing an empty bag of chips out of the car’s window.

At last but not least, some people might argue and say that we’re already paying taxes and yet still have to pick up the trash unmanaged by the government… our response: it is better to light a candle than to curse darkness, as a matter of fact, let’s spread the word and at least appreciate those unknown heroes without uniforms or capes, glory or fame… yet, speaking of heroes and uniforms, Russia has its own similar hero from quite some time ago…

His name is: “Tchistoman”! (tchisto - means clean in Russian), and interestingly, his example inspired many to “clean and scavenge” and because of the mysterious “Cleanman”, an entire community has tremendously evolved!

And at last but not least, we as a society should remind and let the younger generation know and understand Roosevelt’s famous quote: ‘’a nation that destroys its soils destroys itself’’.

1. 1. Hage & K. El-Aref