Syria’s Environmental Woes Fueled Its Long Conflict. Left Unaddressed, They Will Do So Again

Feb 23, 2026 | Peter Schwartzstein
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Peter Schwartzstein recently returned to Syria for his first peacetime visit. Unsurprisingly, the country is an awful mess. The destruction is somehow slightly more conspicuous than it seemed through a number of trips between 2014 and 2022. People’s exhaustion is palpable, and the economic situation is every bit as bad for many now as it was during the war. A formidable—and thus far entirely unanswered—environmental question also looms: how on Earth is the country’s landscape to be salvaged?