This collaborative project by illustrator Aude Abou Nasr and researcher Sarah Sinno builds on a map originally created by Aude for Sarah’s article, featured in The Land Remembers at the 2025 Venice Biennale, curated by the Collective for Architecture Lebanon.
Wars are typically measured in human casualties, economic losses, and the destruction of infrastructure or cultural heritage. But what happens to the land remains an afterthought, if considered at all. Entire ecosystems are disrupted by war, yet much of this loss is routinely ignored or dismissed as collateral damage.
While it is difficult to quantify how many non-human species have been killed, injured, or displaced, statistics tell only part of the story. Numbers may reveal the scale of destruction, but they fail to convey the depth of what has been lost. As vast stretches of land are burned, poisoned and ravaged, we must ask: Who were the species that thrived here?
In response to that question, we created a map that does not reduce life to abstract numbers. Instead, we chose to illustrate some of the native species that embody the ecological richness of South Lebanon.
Through visual representation, we restore presence to what is so often made invisible.
Each of these species is rooted in our southern landscape, and many are embedded in local knowledge, oral traditions, and healing practices, reminders that in South Lebanon, ecology, culture, and community are inseparable.
Of course, the biodiversity of South Lebanon is far too vast to be contained within a single map. What we offer here is merely a glimpse of what exists. We selected a handful of trees, herbs, flowers, and animals, not because they are more valuable than others (we reject the logic of selective worth), but simply because space was limited. By representing a few, we hope to honor the value of all.
This map gives voice to those who cannot speak for themselves, those so often pushed to the margins by war, occupation and colonial systems that desecrate all forms of life. It insists that their loss, too, matters. By making their presence known, we challenge the silence that often surrounds non-human suffering and remind everyone that colonial violence does not stop at the pain inflicted on human bodies: It devastates entire ecological worlds, severing the interdependent relationships between people, land and the ecosystems that sustain them.
- Fennel
- Common Mallow
- Pistacia Palaestina
- Iris Palaestina
- Green sea turtle
- Sea Daffodil
- Rock Hyrax
- Red Fox
- Pomegranate (Punica Granatum)
- Pine Tree
- Fritillaria Libanotica
- Long-eared Hedgehog
- Inula Viscosa
- Thyme (Za’atar)
- Wild Rabbit (Oryctolagus Cuniculus)
- Ricotia Lunaria
- Striped Hyena
- Fig Tree
- Orange Tree
- Alcea Setosa
- Veronica Syriaca
- Grape
- Lebanese Oak (Quercus Libani)
- Olive Tree
- Carob Tree (Ceratonia siliqua)
- Hyancinthus Orientalis
- Lupinus Digitatus
- Gazelle
- Hawthorn
- Sage
- Tobacco
- Dandelion
- Myrtle
- Partidge
- Geranium Libani
- Golden Jackal
- Anise
- Acantholimon Libanoticum
- Polyommatus Isauricoides
- Gundelia Tournefortii
