Official Statement

Official Statement

Mr. Mohamed Saadieh, President, Dannieh Municipalities Union

Global Platform for Disaster Risk Reduction

19-23 May 2013, Geneva

 

It is a great honor for Dannieh Municipalities Union to make our statement at the Global Platform for Disaster Risk Reduction 2013 in the presence of delegations from different nations, governmental and non-governmental sectors.

We believe that we will be able establish a solid plan to reduce disaster risks in all over the world and in our region to build cities able to counter disasters. That is why we are meeting here today!   

Dannieh Municipalities Union was established in December 2004, in Dannieh. It has 23 municipalities’ members which support the activities and plans of the Union.

Dannieh Municipalities Union has been working since its establishment to work in all over Dannieh to raise the standard of living and to avoid loses in lives and properties in case of disasters.

District of Dannieh is one of the eight districts in the North of Lebanon, starts from the coast to the highest peak (Black Spot) in Lebanon and the Middle East. Dannieh is characterized by several tourism incentives: The beauty of the scenery; biodiversity, water resources, some archeological sites, enjoyable weather, natural reserves, valleys, and the highest Lebanese spring is at Dannieh also the largest volume of underground reservoir in M.E.

Dannieh Municipalities Union has participated in UNISDR conferences because we believe that action must be taken to save our people and to plan for ways in which we can reduce disasters risk.

Dannieh is classified a sensitive region. Some of the problems that encounter this region are: deforestation; soil erosion; desertification; air pollution from vehicular traffic and the burning of industrial wastes and pollution of coastal waters from raw sewage and oil spills are what we are facing in Dannieh in specific and Lebanon in general.

Mudflows lead to negative impact on the environment and could cause forest lose in the region which is very green. We have a history with soil erosion and mudflows; a whole town was affected by it and still the bubble of this town exists until today.

Also, because of the colonization that we experiences during the ages, a lot of the trees were cut and the wood of the forests was used to build railways and for military use. The hallmarks of the indiscriminate exploitation on the forests are still there.

 The imbalance in nature is the main cause for almost all our environmental issues; sometimes we cannot control it because it just happens but most of the time it is because we human being do not have mercy the nature and we exploit it.

Not well planned urban development might have some because of the high grow of population, urbanization outside the formal and legal framework for building codes and land use regulations affects also environment that is why Dannieh Municipalities Union has done a Strategic Development Planning for the region of Dannieh, the study finished in 2012 in cooperation with UNDP-Art Gold and the Council for Development and Reconstruction.

Finally, I am honoured to introduce one of the Union biggest projects to help balancing nature and to reduce the pressure on the environment; Dannieh Municipalities Union is on its way to establish a Nature Reserve to protect cedars and juniper trees from being cut.

Ladies & gentlemen,

The bad situation of the nature, water resources, underground water reservoirs, pollution, sewage treatment & solid waste management... it need a real development, especially for the rural areas. Then, we can eliminate the important element for unbalance, and then we can start a new period of risk reduction and then we can establish an action plan and strategic planning for Disaster risk reduction. And then we can talk about HFA2 who based on HFA1

And we can prepare strongly for HFA3 which will be based on real action plane and real framework.

Ladies and gentlemen,

In Philippine, in Indonesia, in San Francesco and somewhere, They have done some precautions and some projects for protection from unexpected disasters...

The question is: why they have done those projects after disaster and not before?

The answer is.: Because of that, we are here... so we have to do our mission... and to do what we have to do.

In closing, Dannieh Municipalities Union would like to emphasize our commitment to making resilient Dannieh. The Union is also ready to work with all stakeholders to solve the problem of the century which is “Make our Cities Resilient to Risk Disasters”

Thank you for your attention!