Fighting the Invasion from the Suez Canal: Coastal Environmentalism and Locating the Lionfish in Lebanon

Abstract

Around the year 2015, new tidings began to be heard across the Lebanese coastline as local marine biologists—receiving reports from divers and fishermen—became aware of a new phenomenon in the coastal waters. Pterois miles, the lionfish, samakat al-asad, a species not usually found in the waters, were being encountered in rapidly increasing numbers. Over the following years, as other Mediterranean countries started reporting similar occurrences, a sense of alert slowly built. Dina, one of my interlocutors and a shining young marine ecologist, had been at work setting up a new NGO to conduct marine pedagogy and environmental awareness campaigns. As the invasion proceeded apace, she and her group reacted to the invading fish swarming the Lebanese coastal waters, putting together a counter-campaign. Meetings were called, ideas pitched, and plans convened. The invasion had to be confronted, just as Elias, another interlocutor from Dina's group, a hobbyist diver in his late 20s and active participant in civil society campaigns, told me during an interview in late 2018: Now the hot topic is invasive species, like the lionfish, and the pufferfish. We have seen lionfish for maybe three years, but now people are starting to talk about it. They are in huge numbers, huge numbers, right. I remember the first couple of dives I did, used to dive with a friend of mine. She had a different diving certificate; I had an 18-meter-depth limit while she had 40-meter limit. She used to tell me how beautiful the lionfish she encountered below was. They spent minutes watching how beautiful the creature is. Now, we see them every dive. If there is no lionfish around, there is like something wrong. Yesterday, during the weekend, we dived next to one spot, next to the Casino du Liban. It was the first time I saw a lionfish and it was a huge fish. They reproduce in huge amounts, huge amounts.