The cedar tree, with its majestic horizontal branches, graces the nation's flag and its bank notes. What if the national flag became the only place you can find a green cedar in Lebanon?
High up in Lebanon's mountains, the lifeless grey trunks of dead cedar trees stand stark in the deep green forest, witnesses to the climate change that has ravaged them.
Lebanon's iconic cedar trees, ravaged by climate change in a region where future warming is "expected to exceed global rates by 25 percent," scientists say.
Often dubbed "Cedars of God", the tall evergreens hark back millenia and are a source of great pride and a national icon in the small Mediterranean country.
That's why activists from Lebanese NGO Jouzour Loubnan gather to plant young cedars on the slopes of the Jaj Cedar Reserve Forest in the Lebanon mountains, northeast of the capital Beirut in a joint initiative in partnernship with the Lebanese Army to mark the 75th anniversary of the country's independence.
