BEIRUT: Environment Minister Nazem Khoury promised Tuesday to energize his ministry’s role with a view to protecting Lebanon’s natural wealth.

During a meeting at the invitation of the Rotary Cosmopolitan Club held at the Vendome Hotel in Beirut, Khoury explained his ministry’s work program and the slogan he raised under the title: “Political Environment in the Service of the Environmental Policy.”

The minister stressed the need to preserve of Lebanon’s natural wealth. He explained that this requires a “strict implementation of a plan to organize sand and rock quarries, and reviving a national strategy to control forest fires, and implement a national plan to fight desertification.”

Khoury said his ministry’s work program is based on several basic pillars; one of them is to activate the Environment Ministry’s role by boosting its human, financial and material resources in order to be in contact with the citizens, reviving the environmental commitment and shoring up the institutionalized partnership between the Environment Ministry and non-governmental organizations and regional and international environmental institutions.

A version of this article appeared in the print edition of The Daily Star on November 16, 2011, on page 2.

Read more: http://www.dailystar.com.lb/News/Local-News/2011/Nov-16/154233-khoury-vows–to-energize–ministrys-role.ashx#ixzz1eUFxy3PV
(The Daily Star :: Lebanon News :: http://www.dailystar.com.lb)