All early modern travelers' accounts of the wild cedars appear to refer to the ones in Bsharri;[1] the Christian monks of the monasteries in the Kadisha Valley venerated the trees for centuries.

The earliest documented references of the Cedars of God are found in Tablets 4-6 of the Epic of Gilgamesh, six days walk from Uruk.

Over the centuries, cedar wood was exploited by the Phoenicians, Egyptians, Israelites, Assyrians, Babylonians, Persians, Romans, Arabs, and Turks.

[7] Belon counted 28 trees: At a considerable height up the mountains the traveler arrives at the Monastery of the Virgin Mary, which is situated in the valley.

The cedars stand in a valley, and not on top of the mountain, and they are supposed to amount to 28 in number, though it is difficult to count them, they being distant from each other a few paces.

[8]Leonhard Rauwolf followed in 1573-75, counting 24 trees: ... saw nothing higher, but only a small hill before us, all covered with snow, at the bottom whereof the high cedar trees were standing... And, although this hill hath, in former ages, been quite covered with cedars, yet they are since so decreased, that I could tell no more but twenty-four that stood round about in a circle and two others, the branches whereof are quite decayed for age.

[9] Jean de Thévenot counted 23 trees in 1655: It is a Fobbery to say, that if one reckon the Cedars of Mount Lebanon twice, he shall have a different number, for in all, great and small, there is neither more or less than twenty three of them.

After about half an hour spent surveying this place, the clouds began to thicken, and to fly along upon the ground; which so obscured the road, that my guide was very much at a loss to find our way back again.

The Christians of the several denominations near this place come here to celebrate the festival of the transfiguration, and have built altars against several of the large trees, on which they administer the sacrament.

They consist of a little clump of trees of comparatively modern growth, not more than nine of them showing any indications of a respectable antiquity, and covering only about three acres of ground.

The ground is covered with débris of cedar and white limestone, and in the centre of the clump is a hideous little building, a Maronite chapel, the appointments of which are painfully poverty-stricken and inadequate.

Time, along with the exploitation of the wood and the effects of climate change, has led to a decrease in the number of cedar trees in Lebanon.

This is the case on the slopes of Mount Makmel that tower over the Kadisha Valley, where the Cedars of God are found at an altitude of more than 2,000 metres (6,600 ft).

After a preliminary phase in which the land was cleared of detritus, the sick plants treated, and the ground fertilized, the "Committee of the Friends of the Cedar Forest" initiated a reforestation program in 1985.