Beirut's RIVERLESS Forest stands as a symbol of hope and resilience as well as a memorial of what was once Beirut's beautiful river. The part already planted will be opened as a public park in only about 2 years time. Another 10.000 sqm are stil waiting for funding and planting.
After a whole revolution and a pandemic, lots of sweat and care, as well as over 66,320$ of generous funding, the first parts of Beirut's RiverLESS Forest are now fully self-sufficient: They need neither maintenance nor watering. We celebrated this milestone with plentiful activities - have a look at how it went in our report!
In collaboration with the scouts of Compagnie Franciscaines Badaro, tOD organized a hands-on maintence session with a group of 50 scouts where they learnt and helped maintain a Miyawaki Forest. The maintenance tasks included: compost-tea making, de-weeding, re-stacking support sticks and more.
As part of BeirutRiverLESS initiative, tOD partnered with Afforestt and SUGi, to gather 20+ participants and introduce them to the Japanese Miyawaki technique. Through an engaging hands-on workshop, they managed to plant the first native urban forest in Sin el Fil Lebanon.
As part of our collaboration with The Chain Effect, we organized a community focus group session for residents of urban areas surrounding the river.
In collaboration with The Chain Effect, tOD curated a workshop where participants came up with bottom-up and low cost interventions focusing on mobility and public spaces around the river in Bourj Hammoud.
On the occasion of Beirut Design Week 2016, tOD developed an installation on a vacant plot of land near Beirut River, along with 20 volunteers who managed to plant more than 400 species of plants.
As part of the UN Decade of Action on Ecosystem Restoration, theOtherDada will participate in the Tabadul on river ecosystems and related successful projects in the MENA region.
We will talk about our pilot project Beirut’s RiverLESS forest as a nature-based solution for challenging urban sites.
REGISTER BELOW:
https://amwaj-alliance.com/webinar/innovative-campaigns-to-restore-our-rivers/
Wednesday 24 March at 11:30am Beirut time
Talk at Bossanova Hotel preceding the screening of the film Embrace Of The Serpent by Ciro Guerra. Our talk introduces the Native Urban forest we have planted close to the hotel.
theOtherDada took part of the “Forum on Cities & Designers” that was co-created by Public Works Studio and Beirut Design Week, during which we presented a timeline of Beirut River highlighting the important events and updates it has gone through since 50 BC.
JOIN US TO CELEBRATE THE 6TH ANNIVERSARY OF BRLF ON SUNDAY MAY 25, 2025! Registration link: https://form.jotform.com/251342076908357
Did you know that we're less than 2 week ahead of this years UN Climate Change Conference, #cop27 ? And did you know that there's a hiking challenge leading to it all the way from Scotland to Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt, where the conference takes place?
This challenge is called #Walk2Cop27 ! It comprises a series of virtual and in-person events and brings together governments, private as well as citizen initiatives! And guess what, it passes through Lebanon on *Thursday, Oct 27th*!
We're one out of several initiatives that will offer activities during this day.
In the spirit of "walking the talk", we would love to see you at our #beirutriverless project in #sinelfil this Thursday afternoon for our *walking tours*, one starting 4pm and another one at 5:30.
We will also be offering a really cool *bee hotel crafting workshop* with our well-known bamboo sticks we usually use for planting - 4:30-5:30pm!
tOD delivered a presentation about Beirut River to a group of graduate Architecture & Urban Design Students from Kent State University at LAU, Beirut.
A tour of the Beirut River area with architect Adib Dada discussed the transformation of the Beirut River from a natural river to its present condition as a toxic site, and its potential rehabilitated future as a public space.
