Insect Pest Eats Into Lebanon’s Pine Nut Trade

Insect Pest Eats Into Lebanon’s Pine Nut Trade

The scenic region of Mount Lebanon has long produced pine seed, a regional delicacy, but harvests have collapsed amid an exotic insect infestation experts say is accelerated by climate change.

Lebanon, wedged between the mountains and the Mediterranean Sea, is best known for the iconic cedar tree depicted on its national flag -- but it also has pine trees that make up nearly 10 percent of total forest cover.

Pine nuts harvested from their cones -- a popular ingredient in Middle Eastern cuisine -- have been dubbed "white gold" because of their traditionally lucrative sales, especially to wealthy Gulf states.

But the natural treasure trove is now under attack.

The culprit is the western conifer seed bug, native to the western United States where it is sometimes called the "stink bug", and which has spread to Eurasia, most likely by hitchhiking on timber shipments.

In the Qsaybeh pine forest east of Beirut, Elias Neaimeh, head of the syndicate of pine seed farmers, pointed to the damage it has caused: the dry, dead trunk of one pine tree, and cones scattered on the forest floor.

In a normal year in the past, Neaimeh said, "I used to produce around 16 tons of pine cones, but today I