Memorandum of Understanding
On Hima for Peace
A Shared Commitment for Community-Led Conservation, Sustainable Development and Peace Across the Levant
Inspired by the Hima Revival Movement in Lebanon
Incorporating
The Charter of Hima for Peace
It is not a contract and creates no legal obligation.
Founding Custodian and Secretariat:
Society for the Protection of Nature in Lebanon (SPNL)
With the cooperation of UNESCO in advancing cultural heritage, environmental education, scientific knowledge, and regional dialogue through the Hima for Peace initiative.
In partnership with IUCN, advancing the protection of endangered species and their habitats through the community led Hima approach.
In partnership with BirdLife International, working through the Hima approach to make Lebanon and the African–Eurasian Flyway safer for migratory birds through community-led conservation, habitat protection and regional cooperation.
Description of this Document
This Memorandum of Understanding is a written expression of shared intent among municipalities, local communities, ministries and public institutions, educational and research institutions, religious authorities, landowners, civil society organizations, conservation partners, youth and women's groups, and regional and international organizations across the Levant.
Within this shared framework, UNESCO is invited to provide technical guidance and an international platform for cooperation, particularly in areas related to cultural and natural heritage, environmental education, scientific knowledge, Biosphere Reserves, UNESCO Global Geoparks and the strengthening of dialogue and peace through the responsible stewardship of shared landscapes. SPNL remains the Founding Custodian and initial Secretariat of the Hima for Peace movement.
It does three things, and only three:
- It records why the signatories have come together — the value they place on the Hima tradition and on the landscapes and communities it protects.
- It sets out, in the Charter of Hima for Peace, the ten commitments the signatories make to one another and to the generations that follow them.
- It names the Society for the Protection of Nature in Lebanon (SPNL) as Founding Custodian and initial Secretariat, so that there is a point of contact through which cooperation can be coordinated.
The document does not transfer land, funds, authority, or rights. It does not alter anyone's legal position. It does not require any signatory to do anything it has not chosen to do. What it offers is something different and, in its way, harder to give: a public world freely given, among people who share a place and a responsibility for it.
Introduction
The Hima is among the oldest continuously practiced systems of community-based conservation in the world. For more than four thousand years across the Levant and the wider Arab region, communities have set aside land, water, and pasture for the common good, governed by rules the community itself agreed and enforced. Grazing was rested. Springs were protected. Trees were left standing. Nobody wrote a law; the community simply held itself to what it had promised.
That system worked because it belonged to the people who lived within it. Where the Hima survived, land recovered. Where it was abandoned — replaced by distant authority, open access or neglect — degradation followed, and it followed quickly.
Through the Hima Revival Movement led by SPNL, this tradition has been restored as a living contemporary practice. Municipalities have declared Himas by their own decision. Local committees govern them. Shepherds, farmers, fishers, schoolteachers and hunters sit at the same table. Scientists and traditional custodians read the same landscape together. The results are visible in restored rangelands, recovering bird populations along one of the world's great migratory flyways, and village economies that earn a living from a landscape they are keeping rather than consuming.
It rests on a simple conviction. Nature does not observe the borders drawn across the Levant, and neither does drought, fire, water scarcity or the loss of a species. The management of what is shared can divide communities, or it can bring them to the same table. The Hima has always been an argument for the second possibility. Where people govern a landscape together, they build the habits of trust that peace is made from.
Therefore the signatories place their names here: not because they are required to, but because they have decided to.
The Charter of Hima for Peace
The Ten Commitments
We, the signatories of this Memorandum — municipalities, local communities, civil society organizations, religious authorities, educational institutions, landowners, youth, women, government agencies and conservation partners of the Levant — united by our shared commitment to nature and people, adopt the following Charter as the heart of our understanding.
Recognizing that healthy ecosystems are the foundation of sustainable societies, and that the Hima represents one of the world's oldest and most enduring systems of community-based governance, we commit ourselves, each within our own means and mandate, to the following:
I. Protect Nature
We will conserve and restore forests, wetlands, mountains, rangelands, farmland, rivers, and coastal and marine environments, protecting native wildlife, endangered species and the migratory flyways linking the Levant with Africa, Europe and Asia. We will declare Himas where we can, defend them against fire, encroachment, pollution and unsustainable hunting, and restore what has been degraded.
II. Strengthen Community Stewardship
We will empower municipalities, local communities, traditional custodians, women, youth, farmers, pastoralists, fishers, schools, faith communities and civil society to govern their Himas through transparent, inclusive and participatory decision-making. Decisions about a Hima belong, so far as possible, to the community that lives with it.
III. Promote Sustainable Livelihoods
We will support green local economies through responsible ecotourism, Hima Trails (Droub Al Hima), sustainable agriculture, regulated grazing, fisheries, traditional food production, handicrafts and cultural enterprises. We will see that the benefits reach local households, and that women and young people share in them.
IV. Preserve Our Shared Heritage
We will safeguard the Hima as living cultural heritage — the knowledge, customs, values, languages and practices that have sustained people and nature here for centuries — together with the terraces, water systems, shrines and dry-stone craft that carry it in the landscape.
V. Empower Future Generations
We will expand environmental education through Schools with No Walls (SNOW), Homat Al Hima (Hima Guardians), citizen science, outdoor learning and volunteering, to raise a new generation of conservation leaders — giving young people real responsibility, not only instruction.
VI. Advance Peace Through Nature
We will promote dialogue, cooperation, reconciliation, and the equitable management of shared natural resources, recognizing that healthy ecosystems can bridge communities and underpin lasting peace and stability. We will design our work to include rather than divide, and never allow the Hima to be used for partisan, sectarian, or military purposes.
VII. Build Climate Resilience
We will restore degraded ecosystems, protect water resources, promote sustainable agriculture, combat desertification, and apply nature-based solutions that help communities adapt to climate change — beginning with the springs, soils and slopes our villages already depend on.
VIII. Integrate Knowledge and Innovation
We will combine traditional ecological knowledge with scientific research, biodiversity monitoring, GIS, remote sensing, and adaptive management. We will treat the knowledge of elders and herders as evidence and hold it with the consent and respect of those who carry it.
IX. Strengthen Ecological Connectivity
We will build an interconnected network of Himas and ecological corridors that protects biodiversity across political boundaries, safeguards migratory species and contributes to regional and global conservation goals — planning by the logic of the landscape rather than the convenience of the map.
X. Foster Regional Cooperation
We will work across borders with communities, municipalities, governments, academic institutions, and international organizations to strengthen the Hima as a regional model for sustainable development, biodiversity conservation, climate resilience and peacebuilding. We will share what we learn freely, including what has failed.
Our Common Vision
We envision a Levant where communities and nature flourish together through the Hima tradition; where biodiversity is conserved, cultural heritage is celebrated, livelihoods are sustainable, and cooperation transcends borders.
Together, we affirm that community stewardship is essential for achieving environmental sustainability, social well-being, climate resilience and lasting peace.
Statement of Endorsement
The undersigned, having read this Memorandum of Understanding and the Charter of Hima for Peace, and understanding that it is a voluntary commitment of honor which creates no legal or financial obligation of any kind, hereby endorses it and joins the Hima for Peace movement in good faith.
