page_title: Al Shouf Cedar Nature Reserve
section_title: Biodiversity
hierarchical_section_title: Al Shouf Cedar Nature Reserve / Biodiversity
caption_attribution_description: English: Cedar forest inside the Al Shouf Cedar Nature Reserve
context_page_description: Al Shouf Cedar Nature Reserve is a nature reserve in the Chouf District of Lebanon. It is located on the slopes of Jebel Baruk mountain and has an area of 550 km², nearly 5.3% of the Lebanese territory.
  The reserve contains the Lebanon cedar forests of Barouk, Maaser el Shouf and Ain Zhalta-Bmohray. It is an Important Bird Area and Eco-tourism area. It hosts 32 species of wild mammals, 200 species of birds, and 500 species of plants.
context_section_description: Flora
  The flora of the Al-Shouf Cedar area is partly covered by Mouterde's 1966, 1970 and 1983 flora of Lebanon. The most recent and extensive botanical researches on the official site were conducted, on behalf of the Ministry of Environment (Protected Areas Project), by (Georges Tohmé) the National Council for Scientific Research (NCSR) in 1999. Since then extremely few flora reports on the official site were published or known. Tohmé continued his field botanical studies at Al-Shouf Cedar Reserve during the last three years in order to obtain confirmation on the status of certain species. His recent new findings are published in Tohmé, G. & Tohmé, H. (2002). Few of them are incorporated here and the others will be added to the final report of the present study-project. The list of Al-Shouf Cedar Reserve species includes 500 identified species distributed over 61 families. Also the reserve is habitat to 25 internationally and nationally threatened species, 48 endemic to Lebanon or Lebanon and Syria or Lebanon and Turkey, and 14 rare species, whilst 214 species are restricted to the Eastern Mediterranean or Middle East area.
   
  The reserve is also home to 24 tree species, of which some are found in Europe and the Mediterranean area as well as in Lebanon. The reserve is known for its official's efforts to save the cedar of Lebanon through continues management of the forests and planting new trees in previously logged and deforestated areas. The reserve form the last natural limits to the spread of Cedrus libani on the planet. The reserve is also known for the ability of the forests to regenerate by their own without any human interference. Other tree species in the reserve include : Cyprus oak (Quercus infectoria ), Brant’s oak (Quercus brantii), kermes oak (Quercus calliprinos), Calabrian pine (Pinus brutia), Aleppo pine (Pinus halepensis), stone pine (Pinus pinea), Greek juniper (Juniperus excelca), Syrian juniper (Arceuthos drupacea).
  Fauna
  Mammals: Mammal explorations in Lebanon were limited until around the middle of the twentieth century. They are fragmentary and provided little information on the mammals inhabiting the country. Many species and subspecies were not yet recorded for Lebanon till the 1970s.
  Between 1980 and 1985, Tohmé, G. and Tohmé, H. alone produced 33% of the known published papers on the Lebanese mammals. The only documented data of the mammals of Al-Shouf Cedar Reserve apparently appeared in the report of Tohmé, H. that was prepared, on behalf of the Protected Areas Project at the Ministry of Environment, in 1999 by the NCSR. This report, which was based on inventory and surveys as well as brochures and other documents developed by the managing team of the reserve, produced a list of 32 mammals which include: wild boar (Sus scrofa), gray wolf (Canis lupus ), beech marten (Martes foina), mountain gazelle (Gazella gazella), golden jackal (Canis aureus), red fox (Vulpes vulpes), European badger (Meles meles), Cape hare (Lepus capensis), Caucasian squirrel (Sciurus anomalus), roe deer (Capreolus capreolus), Persian fallow deer (Dama dama mesopotamica), wild goat (Capra aegagrus), Syrian brown bear (Ursus arctos syriacus), Middle East blind mole-rat (Nannospalax ehrenbergi) Indian porcupine (Hystrix indica), striped hyena (Hyaena hyaena), wild cat (Felis silvestris), Cape hyrax (Procavia capensis). The reserve launched a project to reintroduce the Nubian ibex (Capra nubiana) to the area from Jordan, after it was extinct in the mid-twentieth century. The reserve was most probably home to the Anatolian leopard (Panthera pardus tulliana) which are extinct now in Lebanon. The aurochs (Bos primigenius) may have existed in the area in the middle ages as well.
  Birds: The reserve is home to 200 species of birds, of which 19 are considered rare at the national level. More than 22 species have been confirmed to be resident, the rest are migratory or rare visitors, and at least two or three species have been introduced. The reserve holds a combination of birds found in Europe, Africa, and Asia which include: chuk
caption: Cedar forest inside the reserve
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