On Tuesday 5th and Wednesday 6th of May 2015 the National Beekeeping Forum of Lebanon, titled “Development strategies for Lebanese and Mediterranean beekeeping” took place in Beirut, at the conference room of the Order Of Engineers and Architects of Beirut headquarters.
The Forum has been jointly organized by FELCOS Umbria (Fund of Local Authorities for Decentralized Cooperation and Sustainable Human Development), APIMED (Federation of the Mediterranean Beekeepers) and UNDP (United Nations Development Program), in collaboration with the Ministry of Agriculture of Lebanon, in the framework of the project, funded by the European Union, "Mediterranean CooBEEration: a network for beekeeping, biodiversity and food security“.
The Forum represented an important moment for reflecting and discussing the situation of the Lebanese and the Mediterranean beekeeping, bringing into focus the main problems and the common challenges experienced in the different countries, and advocating for the adoption of policies in support of the beekeeping.
About 180 delegates of beekeepers associations, officials of relevant international organizations, researchers and scientific and academic representatives attended the Forum, representing nine different countries of the Mediterranean: Lebanon, Italy, Morocco, Tunisia, Algeria, Syria, Jordan, Iraq, Libya and Egypt.
The organizers invited on purpose to participate in the Forum high-level representatives of authorities and organizations – all committed to strengthen beekeeping sector - capable to exert an influence on the agricultural policies both at national and international level. In particular the opening session saw the participation of Marcello Mori, head of the Section “Sustainable Development” of the EU Delegation in Lebanon, Luca Renda, UNDP Country Director in Lebanon, Maurice Saade, FAO Representative in Lebanon, Gianandrea Sandri, Director of the Italian Cooperation Office, and the Minister of Agriculture of Lebanon Mr. Akram Chehayeb.
The Minister Chehayeb in his intervention highlighted the need of unifying under a single voice Lebanese beekeepers, affirming that the beekeeping sector is a priority in the national strategy, considering its high potentialities as a source of income especially for small producers and their families. The Minister also underlined the urgency to take action in Lebanon to preserve the natural habitat that is essential for the surviving of the bees and for honey production.
During the Forum a specific technical session has been dedicated to discuss the issue of market and competitiveness, focusing in particular on the challenges that Lebanese beekeeping products are facing both toward internal and external context.
Within this session it emerged as a big problem for Lebanese beekeeping products the access to markets due to fraud and imported honey.
In the same day it was discussed the importance of developing scientific research and monitoring tools in support of beekeeping. The Forum in fact has offered an important opportunity to present the relevant scientific research that is being realized by the Universities of Bologna and Torino in cooperation with INAT (the National Agronomic Institute of Tunis), in the framework of “Mediterranean CooBEEration” project. The aim of this research - the first in this genre - is to study and demonstrate the fundamental role of bees and beekeeping in favoring the reproduction of the spontaneous vegetation in areas with degraded biodiversity.
In the 5th afternoon the debate has been more on a political and strategic level, focusing on the need of building a wide and strong alliances in support of beekeeping and on the importance of promoting common policies in the whole Mediterranean area to protect and strengthen beekeeping, biodiversity and food security.
Sebastien Vauzelle, from ART UNDP Initiative – that since many years is supporting the work in support of beekeeping in the Mediterranean, in cooperation with FELCOS Umbria and beekeepers associations - in its intervention referred to beekeeping as a paradigm for the future and a model of human sustainable development, being in the same time a cultural, economic, social and environmental activity.
Lucia Maddoli, International Coordinator of “Mediterranean CooBEEration” project, underlined the strong engagement of FELCOS Umbria in building networks and relations among different actors to create a multi-actors alliance in support of beekeeping as “Common Good”.
“Considering the importance of the issue for the future of our life, the real challenge – she said - is to be able to bring the attention on beekeeping out of the small circle of professional inside the sector to a wider public”.
The last session of the Forum on the 6th in the morning left the floor free for a free debate and discussion among beekeepers representatives of the various countries present on sanitary aspects of beekeeping.
Mr. Vincenzo Panettieri, President of APIMED, concluded the National Beekeeping Forum of Lebanon congratulating for the good direction undertaken and calling all the participants to continue the common work for strengthening beekeepers organization, which is the only way to really reach higher quality productions, to better fighting the frauds, and to help beekeepers in being self-sustained. “We came a long way from the first meetings among Lebanese beekeepers, and our strong and active presence here today is a signal that this process of networking is already reaching concrete results. Hopefully, next time we will sit together with the newly born federation of Lebanese Beekeepers” Mr. Panettieri said.
Mr. Panettieri finally proposed, as a concrete step to move forward the VII Mediterranean Beekeeping Forum – that will take place in Tunis at the end of October 2015 - to set up inside APIMED a working table on honey quality, to discuss and identify the characteristic of the Mediterranean honey.
You can download all the interventions of the National Beekeeping Forum of Lebanon published on APIMED's website clicking here.
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