Recovering marshlands in Iraq

[nebula]

U.N.: Iraq's marshlands recovering

Wednesday, August 24, 2005; Posted: 1:28 p.m. EDT (17:28 GMT)

UNITED NATIONS (CNN) -- Iraq's southern marshlands -- nearly ruined under the Saddam Hussein regime -- have been making a "phenomenal" recovery, a U.N. agency said Wednesday

The U.N. Environmental Program said the wetlands, which had been regarded as "a key natural habitat for people, wildlife and fisheries," have bounced back to about 40 percent of the area they covered in the 1970s.

The region had been "damaged significantly since the 1970s, due to upstream dam construction and drainage operations" by the former regime, according to the U.N. Environmental Program.

But after the toppling of the Saddam regime, officials embarked on restoration and people "began opening floodgates and breaching embankments in order to bring water back into the marshlands."

Some scholars have called the region located in and around Basra, Thiqar and Maysan provinces the biblical Garden of Eden.

Also, it had been home to a 5,000-year-old civilization called "heirs of the Babylonians and Sumerians" and to "rare and unique species like the Sacred Ibis, and a spawning ground for Gulf fisheries."

Many observers, such as Human Rights Watch, have long documented persecution by the Saddam regime against the Marsh Arabs, who are mostly Shiite Arabs and who backed the revolt against Saddam after the Gulf War.

The UNEP issued a report on Wednesday that includes analysis and satellite imagery of the turnaround. The conclusions are derived by the Iraqi Marshlands Observation System, started a year ago with funding from Japan.

The project is designed to help Iraq manage and monitor the wetlands, help the environment, and "provide clean drinking water for up to 100,000 people living in or near the marshland."

"The near-total destruction of the Iraqi marshlands under the regime of Saddam Hussein was a major ecological and human disaster, robbing the Marsh Arabs of a centuries-old culture and way of life as well as food in the form of fish and that most crucial of natural resources, drinking water," according to Klaus Toepfer, the agency's executive director, whose comments are included in the report.

"The evidence of their rapid revival is a positive signal, not only for the environment and the local communities who live there, but must be seen as a contribution to wider peace and security for the Iraqi people and the region as a whole."

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Read the rest here

[hmh]

Another positive note from Iraq that is being ignored...

[ted]

Not by me!

Thanks for sharing, Neb.

t.

[Anne]

I read about that in the newspaper, a smile spread across my face, Excellent news don't you think?

Your Sister in Jesus Christ

Anne

[Guest Big Dog]

If the radical-environmentalists are the same people that blame our prez for the war..... will they now proclaim him a super-hero for doing more for the environment

Big Dog

[jacob]

This is awesome news for the environment. Maybe we should find a reason, there has to be one, to step up our military in Nigeria. The marshland there is also in trouble with oil.

[Leonard]

A group of people lived there (only a very few remain). Sometimes referred to as "St John the Baptist's Christians," the Mandeans are DEFINITELY NOT a Christian group, but believe(d) John the Baptist to be the Messiah, and that Jesus was a deceiver, sent by satan to distract attention away from John! By all reports although secretive, they are quite hospitable to strangers....