Abstract
One late winter afternoon in 2005 in the village of Arsaal in Northeast Lebanon, a meeting to discuss an upcoming project with the community members was wrapping up.
*Malek Batal was team leader for the project: Wild Edible Plants: Promoting Dietary Diversity in Poor Communities of Lebanon, which was funded by IDRC (2004–2007).
**Amin al-Hakimi was team leader for the project: Traditional Yemeni Rural Diets and Local Food Systems: Enhancing Contributions to Health and the Environment, which was funded by IDRC (2005–2008).
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Notes
- 1.
In November 2004, the Department of Nutrition and Food Science in partnership with the Initiative for Biodiversity in Arid Regions (IBSAR) and the Environment and Sustainable Development Unit (ESDU) at the American University of Beirut (AUB) started the project Wild Edible Plants: Promoting Dietary Diversity in Poor Communities of Lebanon (WEP-DD).
- 2.
Through partnership between the University of Sana’a, the Yemeni Genetic Resource Center, and IDDEALES, the project Health and Dietary Diversity in Yemen – Traditional Yemeni Rural Diets and Local Food Systems: Enhancing Contributions to Health and the Environment was started in winter 2005.
- 3.
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Acknowledgments
We thank the communities of Batloun, Kfarnabrakh, Warhaniyeh, Arsaal, and Kuakh in Lebanon and Al-Arafah, Ribat al Qalaa, Masyab, and Saber in Yemen for welcoming us in their midst. We also acknowledge the support of all of the researchers and other project stakeholders. The following people contributed to the material used in this paper: Anhar Yaani, Sadeq Sharaf, Adnan Al-Qubati, Mokhtar Dael, Ahmed Al-Samawi, Darine Barakat, Salma Talhouk, Shadi Hamadeh, Beth Hunter, Cynthia Farhat, Zeinab Jeambey, and Nader Kabbani. IDRC support for this research was provided through the projects 102692 and 103153.
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Batal, M., Al-Hakimi, A., Pelat, F. (2012). Dietary Diversity in Lebanon and Yemen: A Tale of Two Countries. In: Charron, D. (eds) Ecohealth Research in Practice. Insight and Innovation in International Development, vol 1. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-0517-7_6
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