Situated in the wake of the ‘October Revolution,’ this research analyzes the dynamics of contention that surround the construction of the Bisri Dam, locating it within the larger context of environmental politics and activism in Lebanon, and the contending interplay between global, national and local material interests and forces. The backdrop of previous cycles of protest in Lebanon reignited debates surrounding the state’s mis-management of resources and basic services, epitomized with the onset of the massive wildfires that preceded the ‘October Revolution’ in October 2019, the garbage crisis in 2015, and longstanding electricity and water shortage. Infused with significant corruption and crony profiteering, these domains have attracted marked critique of the state’s degenerate resource management policies and service provision. Built upon the construction of massive and ludicrous dam projects across the country, the state’s espoused ‘model for development’ and management of water resources, in particular, has proven inefficient at best, leaving behind a litany of colossal failures, exacerbated debt, land expropriations, and environmental wreckage. Funded by a ludicrous loan from the World Bank, the Bisri Dam project has invited particular attention given it massive ecological and socio-economic footprint, and the significant mobilization that it has evoked, that has taken multi-scalar, local, national, and transnational, dimensions. The research builds upon burgeoning bodies of literature, particularly within the fields of post-colonial studies, post-development literature, and critical global ethnography to unpack the complex interplay between these multi-scalar dynamics, and how they play out in the everyday terrains and material lives of people, re-inscribing landscapes, re-valuing nature, and redefining livelihoods. To this end, fieldwork for this research relies upon a triangulation of methods: ongoing semi-structured interviews with key activists, local community actors and organizers against the dam project, content analysis of a range of primary resources, including assessment plans, official policy documents, websites and Facebook pages, as well as ongoing in-depth ethnographic fieldwork conducted in the Bisri valley and surrounding villages. This research, therefore, compels us to re-think north/south encounters beyond the ‘good local actors’ vs. ‘bad global institutions’ dichotomies. Instead, the research explores the operations of the international ‘developmental logic’ and its global structures of power, knowledge and capital, epitomized in the World Bank style of ‘green neoliberalism’ (Goldman, 2005), and how they operate through ‘friction’ (Tsing, 2005), and confluence of complex constellations of power and interests.