E-Scape: Landscape and refugee influx

Can landscape design play a role in managing the new processes, patterns and rhythms brought about by the millions of displaced persons sheltering in Lebanon?

Four years after the Syrian Civil War started in March 2011, four million refugees have fled across borders, 7.6 million are displaced within Syria and more than 212,000 people are trapped in besieged areas without access to humanitarian assistance. Lebanon is host to nearly 1.2 million Syrian refugees, who make up about a quarter of the country’s total population. The massive influx of refugees into Lebanon since the start of the Syria crisis has seen refugees settle in every corner of the country, putting a huge strain on stretched services and infrastructure.1

In the wake of the crisis, about 42,000 illegal tents are scattered in close to 1,500 locations throughout Lebanon, mainly concentrated in the north and the Bekaa Valley. Lebanon represents a particular case study in that it is the only country affected by the Syrian migratory afflux that, since the beginning of the crisis, hasn’t adopted a clear strategy of intervention. It refuses the establishment of formal refugee camps, despite recommendations and offers of help by the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR). However, the Lebanese government has established an inter-ministerial crisis cell, confirming its proactive engagement with refugee issues. While the country is not party to the 1951 Refugee Convention, and despite restrictions imposed at the border, “it is expected that Syrians in need of immediate protection and assistance will continue to find safe haven in Lebanon.”2

“Emergency” is a word that aptly describes Lebanon and its landscape. The millions of displaced persons are transforming the landscape by introducing new patterns, new processes and new rhythms that require responses. The deterioration of the situation calls for the development of a strategic plan at the national and regional levels that is able to face the issues of transitional settlements and the needs of the displaced population. But what role does landscape design play in envisioning scenarios at varying scales and phases of intervention to address this emergency? A methodology needs to be developed to permit a flexible, relational and creative strategy capable of managing continuous change and transformations. This should encompass the interlacing of old and new representations of local and imported stories, testimonies and definitions of values, achieved through repeated observations and interventions in the field.

The informal tent settlements are causing major ecological damage to the Lebanese territory.

The informal tent settlements are causing major ecological damage to the Lebanese territory.

Image: Maria Gabriella Trovato

Impact on the landscape

One of the challenges in designing temporary housing for refugees is dealing with the issue of multiple identities and multiple senses of belonging. Re-creating a sense of place and belonging is particularly important to refugees, who have experienced separation from their home, culture and society. Place is an important aspect of human existence and an important source of security and identity. Places shape our memories, feelings and thoughts and in turn, people shape the landscape around them through their experiences and actions. In this way, place is also tied to culture, history and identity. Cultures are embedded in places and lands become the storehouses of ideas.

The informal settlements erected in different areas of Lebanon are enclaves of migrants seeking to establish communities and “ground connections.” A dynamic landscape system is evolving, generating new patterns that are evident in the urban and rural Lebanese landscapes. The borders, both that of the country and the transitional settlements, are creating a layering of landscapes. Plastic, metal, cartons, truck tyres and other found items used to build these temporary structures are creating new visual languages and unexpected effects characterized by transparency, assembly, combination, height, weight, repetitiveness, exception and colour.

The human occupation of the Lebanese territory has drawn a new physical and intangible landscape in which the formalization of living in agricultural or unused areas is expressed by the rich variations of the materials used to construct the private and settlement spaces. For example, the transitional settlement informally erected in the Bekaa Valley introduces new and unexpected dynamics of people and place that until now were not possible to understand and manage. New environmental and ecological assets are in place.

These existing settlements are deteriorating with an increased risk of water contamination from incremental wastewater discharges, sewage and waste disposal. Many informal tent structures in the Akkar and the Bekaa Valley are established on vacant or bare land, in medians separating two adjacent fields, or along roadsides and beneath transmission lines. However, as the number of Syrian refugees continues to rise, further structures will inevitably encroach on agricultural lands and put those lands out of production.3 The transformation of land use brings with it consequences for the social/economical asset and the culture of these areas, changing profoundly the identity, the formal composition and the relations between the different elements of the land. Ecological equilibriums are in danger of being compromised and disappearing.

Creating a “sense of belonging” in the informal refugee settlements.

Creating a “sense of belonging” in the informal refugee settlements.

Image: Maria Gabriella Trovato

For multiple reasons, the modifications to the landscape occurring under the Syrian refugee pressure and presence were not planned. The increasing number of people living in precarious conditions and scattered across the land is determining a loss of landscape character and quality. Landscape quality is a territorial capital that is impossible to relocate, but it can be easily trivialized and stripped of its cultural and natural values. In addition, in rural Lebanon there is still no project that harmonizes the economic, social and environmental aspects that affect the quality of the agricultural landscape, within an overall strategy that can be integrated with land use planning.4 And above all there is a need to structure processes and policies regarding the commissioning value of the agricultural land through collaboration between government bodies, farmers and residents.

In the wake of the Syrian crisis, about 42,000 illegal tents are scattered in close to 1,500 locations throughout Lebanon, mainly concentrated in the north and the Bekaa Valley.

In the wake of the Syrian crisis, about 42,000 illegal tents are scattered in close to 1,500 locations throughout Lebanon, mainly concentrated in the north and the Bekaa Valley.

Image: Maria Gabriella Trovato

Today we can intervene in the existing situation, trying to mitigate the effect of the transformations made on the land, but we need to delineate a design methodology based on the immanent character of the landscape, using it directly in the creative design process. This is the decision that was taken in January 2015, during the first meeting of experts on “landscape in emergency.”5 The meeting’s aim was to design a new landscape interpretation by using the elements on site in a continuous opera of writing and rewriting that considered the mode of new insertion without compromising the existing. The landscape project will not then be a maquillage or a posteriori but will instead lead the planning and transformative choices of the future.

The risk to the Lebanese landscape introduced by the massive presence of Syrian refugees, concentrated in specific parts of the country, is an occasion to reconsider the pre-existing planning system, and to finally decide to intervene with a vision for the future. After the important assessment on the impact of Syrians on the future of Lebanon, made by the Ministry of Interiors and Municipalities, it is now crucial to choose the right direction to govern the transformation in loco (on site) and the future dynamics of people and place. The landscape approach could help with this work by being a relational device able to insert holistic values inside the overall territorial system. Functional, productive and sociocultural, aesthetic values will be equally considered and important in the organization of the land as a product of political and cultural decisions. If this approach interrelates it will be able to estimate and delineate a sustainable program to direct the effect of new insertions on the existing, alleviating degradation, and economic and cultural impoverishment of the land. We will then discover how the planning system and dissemination and growth of historical and cultural consciousness are linked in a fertile relationship of mutual support.

1. Charlie Dunmore, “UNHCR chief meets struggling Syrian refugees in Lebanon,” The UN Refugee Agency website, 15 April 2015, www.unhcr.org/552e531d9.html (accessed 19 May 2015).

2. UNHCR Global Appeal 2015 Update, The UN Refugee Agency website, www.unhcr.org/ga15/index.xml (accessed 19 May 2015).

3. MOE/EU/UNDP, Lebanon Environmental Assessment of the Syrian Conflict and Priority Interventions , 2014.

4. Raffaele Cortignani and Aurora Natali, “EU Agricultural Policy and Landscape: Opportunities for the Resource Landscape with Reform at Health Check?” (English translation) in Agri Regioni Europa , year 5 no 19, December 2009, accessed via www.agriregionieuropa.it/ (accessed 21 May 2015).

5. After a preliminary phase of study and site analysis conducted in January 2015, the international workshop “E-scape: Transitional Settlement” was held in Lebanon in May 2015. It was organized by the Department of Landscape Design and Ecosystem Management at the American University of Beirut (AUB) in collaboration with the International Federation of Landscape Architects, the AUB Center for Civic Engagement and Community Service and the KAYANY Foundation.

Source

Practice

Published online: 4 May 2016
Words: Maria Gabriella Trovato
Images: Maria Gabriella Trovato

Issue

Landscape Architecture Australia, August 2015

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