On a riverbank in war-ravaged Syria's north, felling has reduced what was once a lush forest to dispersed trees and decimated trunks poking out from dry, crumbly soil.
, along with the effects of climate change and other factors, have eroded Syria's greenery.
"Some people cut down the trees to sell them and earn money, others to keep warm during the winter," Sheikh said.Residents told AFP they hear loggers riding motorbikes into the forest at night to cut down trees. "The dust storms never stop, the lake is drying up and there are no trees left," Ali said, referring to Lake Assad, Syria's largest freshwater dam reservoir.Water levels have dropped and pollution has worsened in the Euphrates and the reservoir it feeds, with the river's flow further impacted by upstream dams in Turkey.
Latakia, Hama, Homs and Idlib provinces lost at least 36 percent of their trees in the decade following 2011, when the conflict erupted, according to PAX.
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