1. Preservation of Biodiversity:

to convince the Governments in conducting policies for sustaining beekeeping by:
The increase of the areas covered with forest, the use of degraded areas for growing species of plants useful for the development of agriculture and forest economy but, at the same time, compatible with beekeeping;

to encourage agriculture practices with low pesticides impact or organic;

to implement some Observatories for doing research on the role of the presence of pollinators and, in particular, of bees;

to collaborate to the research activities of the Mediterranean Beekeeping Observatory;

to authorize and support programs of information in schools about the role and the value – not only economic – of bees in sustaining the environment, the biodiversity and the food safety.

2. Preservation of the biodiversity of bees in the Mediterranean area.

Local bees

to stop the import of bees without any differentiation, to raise awareness and to inform on the danger of this practice;

to pursue objectives, in the medium and long term, related with the improvement of the local population of bees, the determination of privileged genetic lines, of selective methods and of the propagation of these policies on the topic of the bees reproduction.

3. Quality of honey

to define, finally, the product honey in the Mediterranean area not only as a Regional product, but also as an evidence and a result of the traditions and cultures that share common traits and as a precious heritage to defend and be passed to future generations;

to pursue policies for the improvement and the promotion of the numerous types of honey produced in the Mediterranean area;
to define and to identify – through the experiences and the acquired knowledge from the beekeepers and the studies conducted by the researchers – the main characteristics of honey or of honeys of the Mediterranean area. To this regard, to develop researches on the physique, chemical and organoleptic characteristics of the Mediterranean honeys, relating them to the floral origin and the composition of the pollen specter.

to create within the Mediterranean Beekeepers Federation a group of work for A Study of the Norms of the " Honey of the Mediterranean; " the group will present its proposals during the VII Mediterranean Beekeeping Forum of Tunisia;

to encourage the consolidation of the Mediterranean Beekeeping Observatory for the members of the Federation and for the other countries of the Mediterranean region that are interested in the development of beekeeping;

to encourage the technical training or the update of the technicians of the laboratories specialized in the analysis of the quality of honey and to proceed, within a defined range of time, to their selection and identification;
Finally:
to realize partnerships with the Arab Beekeepers Union aiming at reinforcing the role of the Federation and of the Union in the world, so favoring the exchange of professional experiences, speeding up the emancipation of beekeeping in front of world challenges and new horizons;

to activate the necessary procedures for the acceptance of new and very important associations which have expressed their desire to join APIMED - Iraq, Egypt, Syria, Jordan, Tunisia, Algeria,- in order to officially formalize their acceptance into the Mediterranean Beekeeping Federation during the VII Forum in Tunisia.

RECOMMENDATIONS FOR BEEKEEPING IN LEBANON

Waiting for the structural actions which could be realized for the Lebanon beekeeping sector, and which have to answer, in the short and medium term, to the following objectives:

1. Preservation of the biodiversity

to increase the farming areas with entomophilous crops on the national territory with regard to the service of pollination;

to structure and organize the beekeepers and to develop partnerships with actors of the sectors of agriculture, environment and forests, with the aim to raise awareness among the importance of bees for the agriculture economy and for the preservation of biodiversity;

to encourage the consideration of bees in the agricultural-systems with regard to the phytosanitary treatments;

to reward the use of agricultural practices more respectful of pollinators.

2. Protection of the citrus orchard in Lebanon
To build argumentative points for the protection and the preservation of citrus orchards in Lebanon:
- economic impact of the orange honey "terroir honey"
- to improve the crops and of their irrigation system "drop to drop"
- to increase the integral battle against the predators
- to constitute an "observatory for the chemical pollution caused by the banana cultivation in the South Lebanon"
- to reinforce the aids for the development of the citrus farming which is a production of the Lebanese soil

3. Health of the bees
The aids of the government should translate into a technical assistance and support for the first medicines which have to be managed by the beekeepers themselves.
4. Quality of honey

to proceed with the ongoing work on the quality of honey;

to participate actively at the international level for a better definition of the products of the hive and, in particular, of honey;
to pursue the optimal objective – thank you to the technique, the training, the inquiry of research – of "honey without residues";
to structure the actors of the honey sector for the creation of interprofessional agreements.