The cedar trees of Lebanon have survived for millennia.

King Solomon is said to have used the tall, strong evergreens to build his temple in Jerusalem. The Phoenicians chopped them down to build ships, the ancient Egyptians to make paper.

But conservationists are warning the usually resilient trees are now facing the biggest threat to their existence - climate change.

Today in the Chouf Biosphere Reserve south of the Lebanese capital Beirut, black branchless trunks jut from the ground where young, healthy ones once stood.

The cedars, which grow in Lebanon and a handful of other Mediterranean countries where they enjoy the high altitude and humid climate, are suffering from the longer, hotter summers and drier winters.

“Our cedars have lived here for hundreds and thousands of years, they are not weak,” said Magda Bou Dagher Kharrat, co-founder of environmental NGO Jouzour Loubnan (Root Lebanon). “But this a different danger.”