With the collapse of the dictatorship, new opportunities are opening up to start exploring the breadth of environmental issues Syria is struggling with, and to bring together civil society groups both within Syria and from Syrian diaspora organisations, as well as Syria-focused external experts, to build networks and foster collaborations. This momentum is essential to explore both green recovery options and environmental peacebuilding efforts toward climate resilience, and should be supported by international donors through their reconstruction pledges and programs for Syria.
Civil society’s role in environmental action
PAX has been monitoring the environmental impacts of the war since 2015, using earth observation and open-source investigation methods. The findings of our work highlighted how conflict-pollution, climate-linked water shortages, and deforestation have had direct impacts on health and caused wider harm to ecosystems that people depend on. Today, these environmental pressures are not just long-term concerns – they are converging into an acute crisis. Where drought was one of the factors driving protests in 2011 – as farmers struggled to survive and bread prices spiked, 2025 is now witnessing the most severe water shortage since 1954. Warnings have been issued by UN agencies and humanitarian organisations over the looming food and water security crisis.
Addressing such challenges in a sustainable way requires multi-stakeholder coordination, with civil society playing a crucial role. PAX has been closely cooperating with civil society partners in northeast Syria, where we conducted environmental work on the ground since 2017. The new access to formerly regime-controlled areas such as Damascus, Latakia, Suwaydah, and Aleppo, has also provided opportunities for PAX to reach out to activists, civil society groups, and local communities to get a sense of their concerns and regional perspective. Hence, in May 2025, PAX conducted a country visit to these areas and interviewed NGO representatives, as well as partners from other parts of Syria to document insights from their work on environmental and climate issues. This is also following our initial ideas to address the water crisis in Syria, outlined in these key recommendations for early recovery jointly written with Syrians for Truth and Justice.
Based upon conversations with these groups, PAX’s own insights, as well as public sources and assessments by international organisations, we have identified three key issues from the interviews, namely, degradation of water resources and infrastructure; waste accumulation; and wide-scale deforestation. We also highlight several broader issues from ongoing research including pollution impacts from the fossil fuel industry and urban destruction that require careful analysis. All combined, the alarming findings are foreboding an environmental and climate crisis.
However, and equally importantly, these conversations also brought forward the determination and resilience of civil society groups to take up this challenge. They all strongly urged for international support to avert the worst impacts from the environmental crisis. Some of the NGOs were active during the rule of Assad and operated with support of the regime, but are now open to collaboration with the new government. Other NGOs based in former opposition areas – including Idlib, Aleppo, and the northeast controlled by the Syrian Democratic Forces – are continuing or expanding their environmental work. For instance, the White Helmets have been working on solid waste management in northwest Syria, groups such as PEL Civil Waves and Syrians for Truth and Justice and Un Ponte Per are exploring new avenues of engaging on environmental and climate issues, while some new organizations – such as Green Northeast Syria – have been formed to advance environmental protection and sustainability.
Water is life: the impact of heat and drought
The most pressing issues on the national agenda are the wide-scale impacts of the war on water infrastructure, worsened by the drying up of rivers, sinking groundwater levels, and broader lack of access to water due to limited rainfall. Syria already faced significant water stress prior to the war, in particular from illegal well drilling, overuse of water resources, and pollution linked to wastewater and sewage dumps. The war multiplied these water woes throughout the country as filtration stations were bombed, water networks severely degraded, and transboundary water problems were exacerbated by political tensions with Turkey. Both direct pollution of rivers such as the Orontes, Euhphrates, and the Khabur, and lower water levels due to lack of rainfall or deliberate blocking have compounded humanitarian challenges.
As a country heavily reliant on agriculture, the lack of rainfall is causing serious concerns in 2025. Drought warnings by the Food and Agriculture Organizations (FAO) suggest that 75% of all crops are failing, and will cause a major food security problem as imports from Russia, where Assad relied on, are halted and slowly replaced by Ukrainian grain imports, while Syria still faces the consequences of sanctions that need to be relieved.
“Agriculture in Aleppo’s northern countryside has been hit because of the lack of irrigation. There is no rainfall,” a farmer from Aleppo told Reuters.
In northeast Syria, the agricultural fields of Raqqa and Hasakah are drying out, with land turning into ‘barren empty spaces’, as a farmer near Qamishli put it. The region, considered Syria’s breadbasket, is suffering from a lack of rainfall for its crops, while irrigated agriculture depending on river and groundwater is also in decline. Water levels are dropping fast, prices for fuel for generators to pump up water are skyrocketing, whilst local authorities are placing more restrictions on ground water extraction out of concerns for sustainability.
In regions like Hasakah in northeast Syria, where people are struggling with severe water and food insecurity, environmental concerns often fall to the bottom of the priority list, as underscored by Alva Ali, the founder of the Ahimsa Center for Nonviolence and Peacebuilding. This neglect, although understandable, leads to unconscious practices that cause long-term and potentially irreversible damage to natural resources. The Ahimsa Center seeks to address this by promoting the concept of environmental nonviolence as an entry point to community peacebuilding – through awareness-raising campaigns, grassroots initiatives, engagement of youth and women in protecting water sources, advancing sustainable agriculture, and restoring a respectful relationship between communities and their environment. According to Alva Ali, Syria’s political fragmentation and persistent tensions contribute to serious challenges in drawing attention to environmental issues, but sustained investment in local initiatives that understand the nuances of the context and can operate flexibly within it can help to overcome these challenges:
“These topics often fail to resonate with a public overwhelmed by more immediate crises, making our work both more difficult and less supported. Still, we believe that the environment offers common ground – a neutral space that transcends divisions and can bring Syrians together around a shared goal: achieving a green recovery that restores balance between people and land, and prevents future conflicts over resources.”
There are also serious warning signals coming out of Damascus, where the Ein El-Fijeh well – which provides water to the 5 million people living in and around the city – is drying up. The city sustained heavy destruction in 2017 from Assad’s government forces supported by Iranian militias that drove out opposition rebels. The water levels of the Barada river flowing down through the valley towards Damascus and provides 70% of the city and its suburbs with water are now at the lowest point in 33 years – and summer has not even started.
“There are major problems in Damascus with water resources and water security for people. We have a river in Damascus, the Barada river, but it is in a very bad condition,” says an activist from a Damascus-based environmental NGO with teams active across Syria. “Climate change over the past few years has meant that there is less water in the river than there was before. A bigger problem, though, is distributing the water from the river. We have to transport it manually by car, and without enough money for fuel, it is almost impossible.”
Similar concerns are echoed by groups from all over the country. In Latakia, we spoke with Mudar Haj Hussein, coordinator at the Green Imprint Association, an environmental NGO founded in 2024 with 50 part-time members and based in Latakia city:
“There is a huge need for clean water in Latakia. Most of the water in use is polluted – sewage water is used to water plants, for example. This creates all kinds of diseases in people: gastro infections from amoebas and other parasites. We even had an outbreak of cholera recently from this problem.”
The group underscored the urgency to get support for water purification in the wake of the war and disasters such as the 2023 earthquake. Despite support given with chlorine tables, household water is still polluted, and causing communicable diseases.
“The water infrastructure in Latakia is really outdated and falling apart, and we really need modern infrastructure for sanitization and water treatment. The current infrastructure is not very effective at this and needs a lot of repairs and updates. We need to replace essentially the entire existing water system, including all the pipes, because they are so ancient.”
War and waste: dealing with garbage and conflict debris
The intense use of explosive weapons in cities, the resulting urbicide, and the broader collapse of governance have led to millions of tons of conflict-debris and widespread accumulation of solid waste dumped in informal landfills. The debris is often contaminated with hazardous materials such as asbestos and heavy metals, which require specialized equipment for safe removal and storage, as well as properly established landfills. The informal garbage dumps are contributing to wider environmental health concerns linked with plastic pollution, waste burning and leachate contaminating soils and groundwater.
In particular, around IDP camps in Idlib in northwest Syria, the piling up of garbage in informal waste dumps, often located in abandoned stone quarries, is posing significant challenges for humanitarian organizations. The latest foreign aid cuts have worsened the issues around these camps, where a local doctor called for international support to “urgently intervene to improve water and sanitation services and limit environmental pollution to preserve the health of camp residents”, considering the outbreak of communicable diseases.
The NGOs PAX spoke to all mentioned the growing problems that unmanaged waste is causing. For example, in Latakia, the Green Imprint Association flagged broader concerns over inadequate waste management:
“There are huge solid waste landfills. We don’t recycle or dispose of waste very well, so contaminants get into the groundwater often and negatively affect the local environment. This happens a lot with used oil, but also with organic waste. Factories are also polluting rivers and other water sources, as the waste goes directly into the rivers.”
In Damascus, the collapse of waste management after the fall of Assad was also flagged by activists as a concern. Garbage collectors – often people with low education and, according to a local environmental activist, mental disabilities – who depended on this work for income, left or were fired. However, with the former head of the White Helmets now taking up the role of Minister for Environment, Emergencies and Disaster Management, this issue is expected to be addressed, as the White Helmets and the former Salvation Government in Idlib have strong experience and commitment dealing with waste management.
Residents of northeastern Syria face similar challenges due to the unregulated and harmful management of solid waste, according to Delil Suleiman from the environmental group Green Northeast Syria:
“In many areas, waste is buried indiscriminately, leading to environmental contamination and health risks. For instance, in the Ararour area of Rmeilan, residents suffer from smoke generated by the frequent burning of waste, negatively impacting air quality and community health. In Qahtaniyah, a waste dump is located near the city, about 1 km from the Mazkef Dam, significantly affecting agricultural land. The trees near the protected area are exposed to pollution, threatening crops and impacting food security for the residents.”
In Raqqa, the situation is even worse, as the Sahla Al-Banat IDP camp is located next a waste dump that contains hazardous industrial materials and debris, such as burnt oils, metal scraps, and grease. A lack of public awareness exacerbates the problem, as camp residents are mostly unaware of the potential health hazards associated with exposure to these materials. Establishment of effective sorting and recycling programs, and the development of appropriate infrastructure for the safe collection and processing of waste is essential to improve environmental and health conditions in the region. These efforts should be coupled with enhancing public awareness and promoting practices of proper waste management, which requires increased support for sustainable initiatives directed at improving local governance and community awareness, as emphasized by the Green Northeast Syria.
In Hasakah, the Ahimsa Center for Nonviolence and Peacebuilding also flags concerns over the scattered garbage across the streets of the city and its surroundings, along with the open burning that releases toxic fumes into the air:
“These are the direct consequences of armed conflict and an ongoing form of slow violence against vulnerable communities – especially children who breathe this pollution every day. In the absence of proper waste management infrastructure, agricultural lands turn into dumping grounds, and groundwater becomes contaminated. This situation reflects a deeper lack of both environmental and social justice, as waste is often dumped near the poorest and most marginalized communities.”
The groups recently joined a cleanup campaign organized by the Environmental Directorate of the Autonomous Administration – an effort that reflects their commitment despite limited resources and technical capacity. For instance, Ahimsa – having already launched small-scale awareness-raising initiatives in the local community – aims to develop broader programs linking waste management with peacebuilding. This pathway requires flexible and direct international support for locally-led efforts by actors who understand the realities and can build meaningful, context-driven responses instead of mere top-down technical solutions. Yet without sustainable systems in place, processing and storing large volumes of waste remains a major challenge.
Disappearing forests, loss of green spaces in cities, and reforestation
Another particularly severe environmental impact of the war is the loss of forests. With nearly 40% of all Syria’s trees being cut or burned during conflict, as documented by PAX, the country has lost a valuable natural resource that is vital for biodiversity, healthy soils, air and water, providing carbon sinks and key to combat climate change. Entire green spaces in cities, essential to prevent them from becoming heat traps, were completely logged.
In Suwayda, southern Syria, PAX visited the NGO Karameh Social Development Foundation, which focuses on social and environmental issues. The city and its surrounding nature reserve experienced heavy logging during the war as people sought fuel:
“There was a sharp increase in logging for firewood beginning in 2012. It used to occur occasionally before then, but not nearly on the scale it grew to. As the economic situation worsened, and people needed firewood to keep warm in the cold winters, logging increased dramatically. The logging began more or less randomly, by individual people just looking for firewood, but it quickly became organized. It became controlled by gangs, local mafia, who would go with guns. Whenever someone tried to stop them, they would shoot. Just a few days ago, someone was shot and killed by one of these gangs as they did the logging.”
To address this, the NGO launched the ‘One Million Trees Initiative’, planting trees along the Damascus-Suwayda highway. The afforestation specifically targets protected public land rather than private property, to ensure safeguards are in place so that the trees can grow. Yet, the group flagged that increasing drought could undermine these efforts, particularly in Suwayda, which used to be a region with a lot of rainfall. They are therefore collaborating with the government to irrigate the newly planted saplings.
Outside the city, several protected areas that once had dense forest were mostly cut down. PAX spoke with Samir Ballanj, a local ranger working to halt the ongoing deforestation:
“The situation with deforestation got far worse starting in 2012. The Assad government started huge building projects involving massive amounts of wood, which resulted in cutting large amounts of trees. Many gangs cutting down the trees for profit were involved in this too, kind of like a scheme for them to get rich with government protection while officially providing wood to these buildings that would never actually get finished. Most of the gangs had some sort of ties with the government, providing some profits from firewood so that they would not get punished.”
The NGO was clear in what is needed: international support for their activities, in particular, through funding for awareness raising and education, capacity building, and acquiring equipment for local fire departments to deal with forest fires, as well as heavy machinery:
“One thing we need badly is machinery to dig in the soil to plant the trees. Suwaydah has very rocky, volcanic soil – it’s very good for growing trees, but it’s difficult to physically dig in it and break up the hard soil.”
In many cases, armed groups and government-sanctioned militias were behind the massive logging to make a profit, either from direct wood sales or charcoal production, as documented by Syrians for Truth and Justice in their analysis of northwest Syria. This practice has also been flagged in the coastal regions of Latakia and Tartus, some of the areas worst affected by logging and more recently also witnessing a spike in forest forest. The local environment group PAX talked with suspected there was more behind these fires than mere accidents:
“Regarding charcoal production, in Latakia it’s really common to see big fires happening. No one really knows who’s behind these, but you can see them often, and no one stops them. There are some gangs or groups controlling it, making big money off of charcoal production, especially people connected with the former regime,” said Mudar Haj Hussein from the Green Imprint Association.
Similar stories of government involvement were echoed during an interview with the Damascus-based environmental group:
“Deforestation is also really bad in Damascus. Most people don’t have electricity or heating, so they would cut down trees for firewood just to stay warm in the winter. Other times, they are cutting trees to sell the wood for profit – I think it’s about 50/50. There are a lot of gangs that control this as well. When I was working for the Ministry of Environment, a colleague of mine investigated one area with heavy deforestation, and he found that it was quite a well-known and powerful man leading it. He confronted the man, and the next day, the environment minister fired him (the investigator). So clearly this was happening at the highest levels of government.”
The growing urgency of green recovery has led to more reforestation projects springing up throughout the country. In Hasakah, local environmental groups started various initiatives with planting saplings in cities such as Qamishli and Hasakah – both as a tool for awareness raising and addressing pollution in these cities, and as an act of remembrance to honour those killed during the war, as was the case with Syriac communities in Qamishli. The environmental group Rainbow focused on specific neighborhoods with tree planting campaigns in 2024 to regreen the city.
Wider environmental issues
Beyond these particular concerns, Syria faces broader environmental challenges. In particular, the fossil fuel industry in Deir ez-Zor and Hasakah continues to be a major source of pollution of air, water and soil, with no solution in sight for repairs or transition to alternative energy sources. The recovery and reconstruction of Syrian cities will also require thoughtful urban planning, including clean-up and recycling of debris, the use of sustainable building materials, and the development of a solid electricity grid to prevent air pollution from generators. Lastly, green development in cities would also need investment in more public transport, green spaces, and reduction of traffic inside cities to minimize air pollution.
Need for Collaboration and Action
What all these conversations and initiatives have in common is a clear and growing desire among Syrian civil society actors to engage in coordination, joint action, and awareness-raising on environmental and climate issues. Years of repression, combined with current funding shortages, is limiting the ability for groups and experts to join forces and work on environmental and climate advocacy. Therefore, international efforts to support Syria’s recovery would need to be substantial and include an environmental recovery dimension for Syrians to be able to return to their country and rebuild their lives and livelihoods.
These efforts should entail support for a nation-wide post-conflict environmental assessment, restoration of energy and water infrastructure, consultations with affected communities for prioritisation, clean-up of conflict-pollution, and restoration of protected areas. There is also a strong focus warranted to address climate resilience, in particular due to water insecurity and broader change in weather patterns that are affecting agricultural areas. Bottom-up approaches with a strong and vibrant civil society are essential for strengthening effective post-conflict recovery work.
With renewed international support through international institutions and donors, there is now momentum to empower Syrian groups and broader environmental actors focusing on rapid and sustainable recovery. They can bring in local expertise, contextual knowledge, and trusted networks to improve regional and national policies for clean-up, environmental rehabilitation, and long-term climate adaptation.
