The trees, the birds and the ecosystem

AUB president Fadlo Khuri and Mona El Hallak

Next time you walk through IC and AUB, look up. Dozens of birds are looking down on you. Some of them live year round on both campuses and others are temporarily resting from their weary and arduous journey as they head north.

Few of us realize, but AUB and IC - extending all the way to the Ecole Supérieure des Affaires (the former French embassy) and the Sanayeh garden - form an ecosystem in Ras Beirut. From a bird’s eye point of view, they provide the only greenery in the city, other than Horsh Beirut.

In 2003, the AUB campus was declared a bird sanctuary. Now, of course, these birds need a protected environment. In 2016, AUB was declared to be an Arboretum and Botanic Garden (AUBotanic). By default, so is IC.

Today, every tree in AUB campus has an identity. Each is lovingly labeled with a card containing a scientific name and a QR code for passerbys to quickly collect more information. One can even get a tour with an AUB certified tour guide.

But earlier this year, the tender labeling of trees has expanded outside AUB and into its immediate neighborhood.

The initiative is the brainchild of Mona El Hallak, an architect and activist who has spent many years fighting to save historical Lebanese houses. In fact, she was the one behind the safeguarding of the Barakat building in Sodeco. Her effort earned her a French Medal of Honor – the “Ordre National du Merite” by the French Ambassador in Beirut in 2015.

It was therefore instinctive for her to restore a cluster of four old houses at the corner of Jeanne d‘Arc and Sidani streets. One of them was a well preserved 1930s building - an important heritage site in Ras Beirut. On the side, was a seven story high rubber tree at least 100 years old. El Hallak’s imagination immediately jumped to renovating the buildings and creating a garden around the tree.

Then suddenly the buildings were gone.

“It was over a weekend,” she said. “One day they were here, the next they were gone.”

Only the rubber tree remained – El Hallak’s sole consolation.

“At least they left the tree,” she said.

A few weeks later, Heba Hage Felder, a neighbor whose terrace overlooks the site called her on the phone: “They are cutting down the tree!” she cried.

The women called the municipality and the police station and after much difficulty managed to stop the further chopping down of the tree - for now.

El Hallak looked sadly around. Once upon a time, Ras Beirut was filled with prickly pear trees, gardens and a rich red soil.

“This is ridiculous,” she said. “We can’t

keep losing our heritage and our trees like this. That was the day I realized that we have to do something to make people aware of the trees around them.”

She called in reinforcements: two AUB graduates and landscape architecture consultants: Zeina Kronfol and Pamela Haydamous. The women had founded their own firm, Greener On the Other Side, which specializes in creating green spaces in public domains.

The decision was unanimous: many trees were still around. Let’s save them by making people aware of them.

“Look around,” said El Hallak, “Ras Beirut still has trees. Most are at least 50 years old. Some of the trees are high and huge. Some you don’t see the buildings behind them. Most of them, nobody notices. But they are there.”

The consultants set to work surveying the trees in the vicinity of AUB. The next step was to label each tree with its scientific and Arabic name, provide some information about the tree and print the QR code in collaboration with AUBotanic.

Also included is the kind of bird that uses the tree for nesting - thanks to bird expert, Fouad Itani.

About 70 trees were lovingly wrapped with a thick burlap ribbon adorned with a label. Other than a few cases of vandalism, El Hallak has reported great success. People were indeed stopping, reading the labels and looking at the trees with new interest.

Just in case they don’t take an interest, bollards on the sidewalk are covered with wooden boxes forming seats conveniently facing the trees, and colorful graffiti tell pedestrians to ‘stop and look at the tree’ and ‘listen to the birds’.

IC’s elementary school children were requested to bring their unwanted Lego pieces to school. Dispatch Beirut, a movement aiming to reconstruct parts of Beirut with colorful Legos, ‘fixed’ the cracks.

El Hallak can sometimes be seen on the IC campus surrounded by students.

Look up and see the birds. We are part of an ecosystem. Look at the trees.

Save them.

Her next project: building and installing birdhouses in collaboration with Greener On the Other Side.

For more information about AUB’s neighborhood initiative go to: https://www.aub.edu.lb/Neighborhood/Pages/ default.aspx