ORIGINAL PAPER Perspectives for sustainable management of cedar forests in Lebanon: situation analysis and guidelines E. J. Sattout Æ P. D. S. Caligari Æ S. N. Talhouk Received: 7 March 2005 / Accepted: 14 March 2006 / Published online: 5 January 2007 Ó Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2006 Abstract The signature and ratification of the convention on biological diversity by the Lebanese government has boosted the declaration of nature reserves. Cedar forests formed the pilot ecosystems, using international funds, for the implementation of a conservation programme and development of management plans. Although different in their attributes, all recent nature reserves have the same basic management objectives and goals but they ignore the idea of taking into account the difference in specific site features and assets that could boost the success of any management plans. Twelve cedar forests flourish in the Mount Lebanon chain. These forests are either protected by the forestry law or are declared as nature reserves by the Ministry of Environment. The results reveal, through Participa- tory Rural Appraisals and Rapid Rural Appraisals, that religion, geographical location and land ownership play, to a certain extent, a role in adopting successful management prac- tices of cedar forests. The RRAs and PRAs spell out the origins of woodcraft, old stories memorized by elderly people and ethnobotanical knowledge. The 4Rs tools method adopted highlighted the need for more collaboration and synergy of effort between various institutions. The social, ecological and economic aspects of the regions play a major role in defining the backbone of management plans for cedar forests in Lebanon. The present paper proposes guidelines for the establishment of a network of cedar nature reserves in Lebanon adopting collaborative management and assigning a separate role for each reserve; the details rely on the site’s natural features, as well as socio-economic and cultural characteristics. Readers should send their comments on this paper to BhaskarNath@aol.com within 3 months of publication of this issue E. J. Sattout (&) Æ P. D. S. Caligari School of Plant Sciences—Whiteknights, The University of Reading, RG6 6AS Reading, UK e-mail: elsa@intracom.net.lb E. J. Sattout Æ S. N. Talhouk Plant Sciences Department, The American University of Beirut, P.O.Box 11-0236, Beirut, Lebanon P. D. S. Caligari Instituto de Biologı ´a Vegetal y Biotecnologı ´a, Universidad de Talca, 2 Norte 685, Talca, Chile 123 Environ Dev Sustain (2008) 10:107–127 DOI 10.1007/s10668-006-9041-8