Beirut Arab University Intangible Cultural Heritage

SDG 11 Sustainable Cities and Communities

THE Impact Rankings indicator 11.2.6 | Beirut Arab University, Lebanon

Response to the indicator

Question: Does your university as a body deliver projects to record and/or preserve intangible cultural heritage such as local folklore, traditions, language, and knowledge?

Yes. Beirut Arab University (BAU) delivers cultural recordings through its Media Center and participates in community knowledge documentation through its Research Center for Environment and Development (RCED). The strongest evidence comprises recorded storytelling, cultural interviews and published research on traditional plant use, food practices and ecological knowledge. The original sources below identify both the outputs and BAU’s institutional role.

Evidence: BAU Media Center productions

Evidence: BAU led traditional food knowledge research

Productions

Welcome to our Production Showcase! Here, you can explore a diverse range of our creative projects, each offering a unique glimpse into the stories and voices we amplify. From insightful podcasts to engaging talks and inspiring series: Discover the quality and impact of our productions through selected samples.

Frontiers in Sustainable Food Systems

Why these projects address intangible heritage

UNESCO includes community knowledge about the natural environment within intangible cultural heritage, alongside the language, memories, values and practices through which communities express it. This provides a clear basis for assessing local plant use and ecological knowledge as cultural evidence. The classification below is an assessment of relevance to the indicator; it does not imply UNESCO inscription or endorsement of individual BAU projects.

Evidence: UNESCO knowledge and practices concerning nature

Knowledge and practices concerning nature and the universe

Recorded storytelling and cultural expression

Al Hakawati storytelling programme in 2025

BAU’s Media Center identifies Al-Hakawati as a four-episode Ramadan programme reviving traditional Arabian storytelling. Its official university channel hosts all four recordings, uploaded on 6 May 2025. The university is therefore producing and retaining an audiovisual expression of a storytelling tradition, with publicly accessible outputs that can be revisited beyond a live performance. This is direct project evidence for recording and presenting intangible heritage.

Evidence: BAU description of Al Hakawati (Audiovisual Productions section)

The date above is the public upload date. The four recordings form one programme and should be reported together, rather than counted as four unrelated preservation projects.

Houweyati cultural interviews in 2024

The Media Center also produces Houweyati, a podcast exploring Arab culture, history and identity. Its catalogue connects the institutional programme to the original recordings. Two dated examples are especially relevant to cultural expression and the recording of local identity.

Evidence: BAU Media Center catalogue of Houweyati episodes

An interview with Lebanese artist Ahmad Kaabour, uploaded on 20 June 2024, is titled Beirut, its sea, people and celebrations. The recording preserves a cultural conversation centred on Beirut. Its title establishes the subject; no separate claim is made that it is a systematic inventory of the city’s festivals or oral histories.

Evidence: Official Ahmad Kaabour interview

An interview with poet Dr. Mahdi Mansour, uploaded on 26 July 2024, is titled Between science and poetry. It supplies a further recorded platform for Arabic poetic and cultural expression. Together, these examples show a continuing production format through which the university makes cultural voices accessible.

Evidence: Official Mahdi Mansour interview

Recording traditional medicinal plant knowledge

Shouf community knowledge survey published in 2022

The Shouf Biosphere Reserve ethnobotanical survey, published on 26 December 2022, documented 184 medicinal plant species from 57 families. Its 2019 to 2022 interviews and focus groups involved 133 informants in 22 villages and recorded uses and preparation practices. Methods describe consent, photographs and some video recording.

Safaa Baydoun of BAU RCED coauthored the study and contributed to manuscript development. The publication preserves community knowledge in a citable record, with the university’s collaborative role clearly identified.

Evidence: Original open access ethnobotanical survey (Methods, author affiliations, contributions and supplementary information)

A reusable dataset deposited in 2024

The publisher’s supplementary dataset provides the survey’s quantitative and qualitative ethnobotanical records in Table S1. Its public repository entry was posted on 13 August 2024. This is a concrete preservation output: the documented knowledge can be located and consulted as structured research material. The deposit belongs to the same Shouf survey and is not an additional fieldwork project.

Evidence: Publisher repository entry for the supplementary dataset (Additional file 1 and Table S1)

Knowledge of poisonous medicinal plants published in 2023

A related collaborative study, published on 6 October 2023, records community knowledge of poisonous medicinal plants in the Shouf Biosphere Reserve. Its 2019 to 2021 fieldwork involved 133 informants and documented 31 species from 22 families. BAU RCED appears in Safaa Baydoun’s author affiliation. The output records local knowledge about plant uses and reported toxicity, preserving cautionary knowledge as well as customary practices.

Evidence: Original poisonous medicinal plants study (Page 1 publication date and affiliations; methods and results)

The two Shouf papers have related settings and participant totals. Their informant counts should not be added to claim a larger number of unique community participants. Each publication should instead be presented through its own subject, methods, output and institutional contribution.

Evidence: Shouf medicinal plant survey and participant information

Evidence: Poisonous plant survey and participant information

Recording food traditions and ecological knowledge

Traditional wild food practices published in 2023

The wild leafy vegetables study was published on 9 January 2023, despite its DOI and volume referring to 2022. BAU RCED’s Safaa Baydoun is the lead and corresponding author. Interviews during 2018 to 2022 involved 151 informants in 21 villages and towns, documenting 158 gathered and consumed plant species.

Table 1 records common names, edible parts and modes of consumption, connecting terminology and culinary practice. The article reports BAU ethics approval and credits Baydoun with conceptualisation, survey design and manuscript leadership. These roles establish active university involvement in recording traditional food knowledge.

Evidence: Original traditional wild food study (Publication date, Table 1, ethics statement and author contributions)

Mount Hermon community knowledge published in 2024

The Mount Hermon assessment, published on 12 April 2024, documents community values, rules and traditional ecological knowledge. Researchers conducted semi-structured interviews with 126 local informants during 2022 to 2023. The findings connect resource use with local ecological understanding, social identity, attachment to place and spirituality.

First author Safaa Baydoun of BAU RCED, with Lamis Chalak, contributed conceptualisation, survey design, data management and manuscript leadership. The team includes Mount Hermon Nature Reserve and a Ministry of Social Affairs development centre representative. The public abstract and author information substantiate both the documentation and BAU’s role.

Evidence: Original Mount Hermon assessment (Abstract, author information and contributions)

Community partner dissemination in 2025

Mount Hermon Nature Reserve published a dedicated webpage about the assessment on 28 February 2025. This gives the recorded knowledge an additional public route through a local conservation partner. It demonstrates dissemination of the same research beyond the academic publisher; it should not be counted as a new survey or an additional set of participants.

Evidence: Mount Hermon Nature Reserve page on the assessment

An Initial Assessment of Community Values, Rules, and Traditional Ecological Knowledge of Mount Hermon, Lebanon: Key Perspectives towards Biocultural Conservation

Recent research conducted by Safaa Baydoun, Nizar Hani, Hicham El Zein, and their team, published in Human Ecology (April 2024), provides valuable insights into how this unique site can serve as a model for biocultural conservation.

The study explored these dynamics using the Values, Rules, and Knowledge (VRK) framework, surveying 126 local informants. Findings revealed a deep understanding of the mountain’s instrumental, relational, and intrinsic values. While the majority of respondents (50.84%) emphasized instrumental values—such as the mountain’s role as a water source, fertile land for agriculture, and a hub for eco-tourism—41.88% also highlighted relational values, like a sense of place, social identity, and spirituality. Intrinsic values, recognizing the right of nature to exist independently, were less frequently cited but still notable (7.28%).

Mount Hermon, Lebanon, has a long history of human occupation reflected in the landscape and ecology that makes biocultural perspectives highly relevant for the conservation of this mountain territory. We conducted semi-structured interviews with 126 local informants during 2022–2023 using a Values, Rules and Knowledge (VRK) framework. Our findings illustrate that while instrumental values of this territory (e.g., water sources, tourism, land, and good soils for crop production) were most frequently cited by informants (50.84%), relational values (e.g., social identity, sense of place, and spirituality in human-nature relationships) also scored high (41.88%), with subjective intrinsic values of nature as an end in itself (e.g., the right of nature to exist on its own behalf) least cited (7.28%). At the same time, co-occurrence of formal rules (62.26% of informants’ citations) and informal rules (37.74%) among actors with significant local ecological knowledge (LEK) in resource use, was identified in a 70.27% of the cases. Principal component analysis demonstrated five strong correlations of enabling or conflicting interactions within the VRK framework that merit close consideration for a meaningful participatory conservation strategy of both biodiversity and cultural diversity in a key hotspot. Our findings contribute to a better understanding of the socioecological context of the Mt. Hermon ecosystem and to orient decision making for effective management and conservation planning in the region and beyond.

Student learning and institutional support

Student research on traditional craftsmanship in 2022

BAU’s Architecture and Planning Journal published Reem Al Zein’s Role of Public Spaces in Re Activating the Cultural Identity in 2022. The repository identifies the author as a BAU master’s student. The research explicitly addresses the decline of Lebanese craftsmanship as a threat to intangible cultural heritage and examines how public spaces could support cultural production and identity in Beirut.

The stated approach uses literature, desk research and a case study. This is relevant student research and a preserved scholarly output about sustaining craft traditions. Its evidential role is supporting: the paper proposes responses, but does not itself establish delivery of a craft training centre, an apprenticeship scheme or a completed archive of artisans’ techniques.

Evidence: BAU journal record of the craftsmanship research (Abstract, author information and recommended citation)

Heritage education for future teachers

The Faculty of Human Sciences lists Heritage Education for Elementary Education, EDSS406, as a two-credit concentration elective. The description connects heritage education with traditions, festivals, folklore, music, language and cuisine. This provides a curriculum route for preparing future teachers to recognise and transmit cultural knowledge.

The published course description is an undated standing academic provision. It supports institutional capacity and intergenerational transmission; it should not be used as a dated count of recent field projects or as evidence that particular students completed community interviews.

Evidence: BAU EDSS406 course description

Plant conservation and knowledge infrastructure

RCED’s projects page describes an 11,000 square metre herbal garden at BAU’s Bekaa campus, jointly established with the Faculty of Pharmacy and Green Hand Organization. The garden conserves native medicinal and aromatic plants and provides educational information and plant material for research. It complements the documented traditional plant knowledge studies by maintaining relevant living resources and an educational setting.

The garden page does not date its establishment or demonstrate a new delivery within 2021 to 2026. It is therefore supporting infrastructure. The actual recording of community knowledge is evidenced by the surveys, published tables and datasets described earlier.

Evidence: BAU RCED projects and herbal garden description (BAU Herbal Garden for Lebanese Medicinal and Aromatic Plants)

Arabic language and cultural identity

The Media Center states a role in promoting Arabic and preserving Arab heritage. Its catalogue also lists the Arabic language episode Arabic as a homeland, identity challenging the algorithm. This is an additional institutional language production; its listing does not establish a verified release year for inclusion as a separately dated recent project.

Evidence: BAU Media Center mission and language production listing

Evidence: Original Arabic language episode

The BAU Media Center

The BAU Media Center leads the way in nurturing creativity, communication, and academic excellence not only within its community, but also extends to reach the broader community. The Center is committed to providing the highest level of support in digital media, offering a variety of services that aim to raise the quality and impact of your work and help you excel in any profession you pursue.

A vital aspect of the Center's mission is the promotion of the Arabic language and the preservation of the Arab's rich cultural heritage. Through productions and trainings, the Center strives to not only support the academic endeavors of students and other community members, but also to contribute to the ongoing dialogue about the significance of Arab's linguistic and cultural identity in today's world.

As you navigate through the website pages, you can access links to the Center's previous trainings and productions, explore the upcoming trainings, and discover our newest podcasts and publications. Engage with the resources we provide to enhance both your creative and academic journey.

Together, we advance knowledge, preserve heritage, and shape the future of media.