Wednesday, August 24, 2022
USAID Celebrates the Opening of the Newly Established Urban Green Space in Achrafieh, Beirut
"Ghadi News"
On August 23, 2022, the USAID/Lebanon Acting Mission Director Mr. Nicolas Vivio, Beirut Governor Judge Marwan Abboud, representatives from the Beirut Municipal Council, and Lebanon Reforestation Initiative (LRI) and community representatives celebrated the opening of the new urban garden on the Fouad Boutros bridge in Achrafieh, Beirut. This garden is part of USAID’s urban forestry work in Beirut, designed and implemented by LRI NGO as part of the USAID-funded Livelihoods in Forestry (LiF) activity in close collaboration with the Beirut Governorate. Like other forestry interventions in Tripoli, Byblos and Saida, this garden will help create short-term job opportunities for cleaning and maintenance of existing green spaces across the city.
Attendees participated in the ribbon-cutting and then toured the garden to learn more about the impact of this initiative. Planted on a highway bridge that was abandoned in the 1970’s, the garden marks a safe and healthy green destination for Beirut residents and adds aesthetic beauty to the local neighborhood. The planters used are made of recycled materials, the benches at the site are upcycled from rejected plastic and glass, and the trees, shrubs and herbs are native.
Throughout its various forestry interventions in Beirut, USAID’s LiF activity has planted more than 2,300 native seedlings and created short-term jobs for 396 people, all of which were affected by the 2020 Beirut blast and are impacted by the current economic crisis.
Since September 2018, the $6.1 million LiF project has been working to conserve and expand forests while enhancing economic benefits from forestry through the establishment of models for agroforestry, urban forestry, and forest-related rural tourism. To date, LiF has planted more than 260,000 native trees across the country in rural and urban areas and created seasonal jobs for more than 2,000 people.
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