SDG 14: Life Below Water

Life below water is primordial and essential for the human being. In fact, the humanity should protect the life under water to sustain survivability. Efforts must be done by all the active bodies to ensure good life below water. The sustainable management of the under water resources is one of the most important culture to be taught and spread worldwide. In the front line, universities are loaded to fulfill this mission, through collaboration with all potential communities and to organize events, in order to raise awareness about under water ecosystems conservation.  

IUL and life below water:

On the other hand, and in order to raise awareness about overfishing, illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing and destructive fishing practices, the IUL supports the activities for local or national communities to respect the national and international maritime laws. 

To Support the aquatic ecosystems, The IUL encourages the events aimed to promote conservation and sustainable utilization of the oceans, seas, lakes, rivers and marine resources to ensure sustainable food. In this regards, some students are engaged in a project aiming to produce plants and fish at home. This E-FARM project is an innovative farm involving some recent technologies such as controllers, telecom and programming. 

E-FARM is an innovative farm producing 100% organic plants and fish while saving 90% of water usage.

To protect ecosystems and human health, The IUL provides potable water to all employees and ensures sanitation and drainage systems for the sewers according to national standards. To help reducing the pollution, The IUL provides and guarantees all the instructions for waste sorting to reduce marine pollution. For that, a group of students from IUL is engaged to collect and sort the recyclable plastic water bottles. 

To maintain local ecosystems, the IUL has signed some agreements with some local organizations.  

An agreement with Tyre municipality offers some scientific and technical advices to exploit the fresh water fountains under sea water at the coasts of Tyr city and the turtle’s safe park (reserve).  

For example, the municipality of Deir Qanoun En Nahr (Tyr (Sour) District) inaugurated a drinking water treatment plant, partly funded by United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL), to provide water to residents. Deir Qanoun Nahr, which is one of the largest cities of Tyr (Sour) District, has more than 10,000 residents. Drinking water supply of the population is a priority for the municipal council. This plant was built as part of a cooperation project between the contingents of UNIFIL and the municipality. UNIFIL has funded the project to the tune of $ 24,000.00, Korean battalion of UNIFIL up to $ 29,000.00 and the municipality of Deir Qanoun En Nahr up to $ 1,300.00. 

Another agreement has been signed with Baalbek municipality and the Lebanese Organization for Studies and Training, in order to distribute waste containers in the university (Baalbek campus) and to host events for Training and rehabilitation about waste sorting of IUL students. This will help to clean and restore irrigation canals as well as the Litani river.  

In 2012, The IUL and The Beirut Arab University (BAU) and under the umbrella of Tempus project, a project has been proposed to introduce some courses concerning the green engineering in the curriculum of the faculties of engineering. But this project was not continued due to some constraints and limitations.   

At the invitation of the Islamic University in Lebanon and the cultural movement in Lebanon, the Minister and Deputy Dr. Inaya Ezz El-Din a lecture titled “Approach to Waste Management: Between Sustainability Principles and Reality” this morning in the university branch hall in Tire, attended by the Secretary-General of the University, Prof. Hussein Badran, and the Dean of the College of Political Science and Diplomacy, Prof. Ramez Ammar, the organizational officer of the Jabal Amel region in the Amal Ali Ismail movement, the director of public relations at the university, Dr. Hisham Al-Husseini, educational and social events, heads of municipalities, university professors, students, and interested persons.

Quality policy at the Islamic University

The Islamic University of Lebanon is committed for consolidating the culture and the principles of quality of education and scientific research. By applying the highest national and international requirements and standards for accreditation and quality in the sector of higher education and scientific research, IUL aims to assure permanent and continuous improvement of the educational process, taking into account the needs of the individual, society and the environment. 

Conclusion and future perspectives:

Nowadays, the sustainable management of the under-water resources is a very important and very complex problem. To reduce the impact of pollution: climate change and the asymmetrical consumption of under-water resources, this problem requires collective efforts of all the active bodies, such as policy makers, educational institutions, etc.  

In order to reduce the pollution and to save and conserve the life under-water, the Islamic University of Lebanon (IUL) takes important care to spread the awareness concerning the sustainability of under-water resources. For that and in order to be part of the worldwide efforts regarding the under-water resources conservation, agreements are signed, activities are done and also educational programs are included in the curriculum of many departments.