IRAQ | Environmental News

[IraqiPlan_et]

Good effect: The percentage of recovery reached 60% of the marshes and work is still going on
October 11 2011


BAGHDAD - babysit - Minister of State for the marshes of good force, said on Tuesday that destroyed the marshes during days of the previous regime is experiencing a major campaign to bring it back to life after the fall of that regime.

"The force" said in a statement singled out by the news agency and public opinion, "The marshes dried up and ended the day life of the inhabitants was left in no man and no animal or plant being exposed to the systematic sabotage and orderly."

He was pointing out that open water of the marshes have been recovered by 60 percent, and work continued to revive it.

Stressing that his ministry had moved since 2006 to serve the first two-way return the marsh water to it and the second delivery of services to the people that dwell therein ... p / g

[IraqiPlan_et]

I reposted this article here just so you know (so that I could start the thread)

[BigDreamer]

thanks IraqiPlan

[IraqiPlan_et]

Kein problem

[IraqiPlan_et]

Scottish botanists to restore Garden of Eden
22 Jan 2012



A team of Scottish botanists are heading to Iraq to help restore an area thought to be the biblical Garden of Eden.

The Centre for Middle Eastern Plants (CMEP), based at the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh, has joined forces with conservation charity Nature Iraq to rebuild the delicate eco-system of the Iraqi marshlands, which were drained by Saddam Hussein in the 1990s. The area south of the city of Basra, is regarded by scholars as being the location of the Old Testament Garden of Eden.

In the Book of Genesis, it is described as at a place of four rivers. Since the early days of Christianity this has often been interpreted as being the Mesopotamian Marshes, where the waters of the Tigris and the Euphrates and two other rivers once met before climate change transformed the once highly-fertile region into marshes.

During the trip in March, the Scottish team will record and register plants in the area as part of an ambitious project to restore the marshlands. They will also help to train Iraqi botanists to take the work forward.

An exhibition in Scotland later this year – Paradise Restored – will explain the plan to a wider public. Sophie Neale, a CMEP researcher involved in the project said: “This will cover its [the area’s] history as the Garden of Eden and the cradle of civilization and recent restoration work after it was drained by Saddam Hussein.”

Tony Miller, director of the CMEP said: “Nature Iraq’s first project is the restoration of the marshes and we are working with them. Without the marshes there is no wildlife in the region. They support the bio- diversity of the area which is rich in bird life and in the past was very important for fish. There is a complete eco-system that is in the process of being restored.”

Prior to his downfall and execution in 2006, Saddam drained the wetlands to punish the indigenous Marsh Arab tribes, who had risen up against him in the aftermath of the first Gulf War in 1991. The former Iraqi dictator built a network of canals to channel water from the Euphrates and Tigris around the marshes, dumping it straight into the Persian Gulf.

Within months the marshes, which had covered 15,000 sq km, were reduced to less than 10 per cent of their original size, killing off wildlife and plants and destroying delicate eco-systems which had been there for thousands of years.

Slowly, however, the biodiversity of the region is returning under the control of Iraqi engineer Azzam Alwash, head of Nature Iraq. He is carrying out work to refill the marshes, which had turned to desert, with water.

Around 50 per cent of the area has since been refilled, and the ecosystem and wildlife is slowly recovering.

Later in the year, the Botanics will host the exhibition to document the work being undertaken in Iraq, as well as projects in other parts of the Middle East, including Turkey, Afghanistan and Syria. Miller described it as an important project for humanitarian, as well as botanical, reasons. “It is scientifically interesting for us and it’s also something that I feel we should be doing. If we are going to go into a country like Iraq in a military sense it seems quite reasonable that we should try to help rebuild the country afterwards as well.”

Not only have scientists recognised the area’s importance. At the start of the second Gulf War, with Allied troops about to invade southern Iraq from Kuwait, Lieutenant Colonel Tim Collins, commander of the Ist Battalion, the Royal Irish Regiment, famously told his men: “This is the site of the Garden of Eden, of the Great Flood and the birthplace of Abraham – tread lightly there.”

[mysterious 1]

Iraqi Dr speaking about the environment and its aspects in iraq, must watch!

[QuickneutronU235]

it's looks like he wants to become minister of environment. hmm, I think he will change many things in Iraq if he becomes minister!

[Chounz]

What a great guy, unfortunately people like him are a minority in Iraq. If there were more people like him our country wouldnt be in such a mess today. I hope he can make a difference alone, because I doubt he'll be getting much help.

[QuickneutronU235]

Originally Posted by Chounz

What a great guy, unfortunately people like him are a minority in Iraq. If there were more people like him our country wouldnt be in such a mess today. I hope he can make a difference alone, because I doubt he'll be getting much help.

100% true, politicians in iraq only care about owning armored SUV cars which costs millions of dollars! and iraqi ppl are the victims of diseases, explosions, and so on..., alhamdullilah anyway!

[Ali - Iraq]

Originally Posted by QuickneutronU235

100% true, politicians in iraq only care about owning armored SUV cars which costs millions of dollars! and iraqi ppl are the victims of diseases, explosions, and so on..., alhamdullilah anyway!

Are you kidding?

[SumerianKing]

Great guy inshalah his views will be more wide spread and known.

[sheytanElKebir]

Trees as far as the eye can see are the weapons one Iraqi province is using in the fight against desertification in a country where decades of conflict have exacted a terrible environmental toll.

Karbala, 110 kilometres (70 miles) south of Baghdad, is best known as the site of the shrines of Imam Hussein and Abbas, who are among the most revered figures in Shiite Islam, and sees millions of pilgrims visit every year.

But it is also the location of a six-year-old project aimed at fighting worsening desertification in Iraq: a "green belt", or a 27-kilometre crescent lined with thousands of young trees in orderly patterns, irrigated by dozens of wells.

The area had been used as a military encampment but is now the front line of Karbala's battle against increasingly frequent sandstorms and salinisation of the land.

"If we do nothing, the desert will envelop us," said Hassan Jabbar, who heads the "green belt" project. "So we must go on the offensive, not on the defensive, and we must establish new irrigation projects."

The project has involved the planting of 62,000 olive trees, 20,500 palm trees, 37,000 eucalyptus trees, and 4,200 tamarind trees, all of which were chosen for their root strength as well as for the food some eventually produce.

Karbala province governor Amal al-Din al-Har, himself a former director of the provincial agriculture department, spoke with pride of the project, and said he hoped to widen the belt tenfold from its current 100-metre (330 feet) width.

"For 30 years, Iraq has been combating desertification, but after we established the (national) anti-desertification office, what we have accomplished in Karbala has been the most ambitious and most successful effort in Iraq," Har said.

The country's environment ministry estimated in 2009 that 39 percent of Iraq's surface was affected by desertification, while an additional 54 percent was under threat.

And while the ministry estimates that 28 percent of Iraq's territory is comprised of arable land, around 250 square kilometres (96 square miles) are lost every year due to degradation of various kinds.

Tumultuous history

Iraq is far from the only country affected by desertification, but its tumultuous history has made it particularly vulnerable.

"Iraq has fought many wars," noted Mohammed Ghazi Saeed, head of the national agriculture ministry's anti-desertification department. "They have greatly damaged the country's environment."

Saeed said the situation worsened notably after now-executed dictator Saddam Hussein's 1990 invasion of Kuwait, and the subsequent international coalition that formed to evict him from the neighbouring emirate.

As Saddam's forces fled Kuwait, they burned oil wells there, which Saeed said left Iraq "black, literally."

"Of course, this poisoned the soil, the water, and led to the disappearance of many plant areas."

The dictator's military vehicles also destroyed green areas in the south and centre of Iraq by loosening the soil as they traversed them, and his forces chopped or burned down swathes of vegetation as part of efforts to track down internal dissidents.

This has combined with climate change -- Iraq has suffered several droughts over the past decade -- to worsen an already difficult environmental situation, with sandstorms in Baghdad regularly forcing the closure of the capital's airport, and leading to increased hospital visits due to respiratory problems.

In response, the Iraqi government has adopted a roadmap to fight desertification, involving efforts such as the Karbala green belt and planting programmes in the areas near the western Anbar desert.

But Saeed said that while Iraq had started doing its part, neighbouring countries were not pulling their weight, and insisted they had to allocate greater budgets to environmental preservation.

He also admitted that while authorities across Iraq were working to combat desertification, he was still not confident they would see the plans through to their conclusion.

"It is not really difficult to plant a tree -- what is important is to let it grow," he said. "I must admit that the government is not yet fully capable, it is still weak in terms of completing projects."

Har was even harsher in his assessment of how much more needed to be done.

"I think Iraq is really far behind when it comes to the fight against desertification, and it really does not have strong measures to push efficient water usage," he said.

"Even today, we do not consider it an essential part of life, and we waste water."

Alluding to the years of violence that racked Iraq from 2006 to 2008, when confessional violence left tens of thousands dead, Har added: "Sandstorms now pose more of a problem than explosions."

[ardamir]

This took some digging but here is an article about the marshes from NASA. It has a slideshow illustrating changes over the past 10 years ending with 2010.

http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Fea...hange/iraq.php

The article highlights the speed of recovery but recent imagery indicates that the marshes are under threat from decreased river flows due to agriculture and drought.

[ardamir]

Here is a article from 2011:

http://www.wildlifeextra.com/go/news...hes011.html#cr

"By 2007 over 50% of the marshes had been restored, but now the proportion of restored marshland has dropped to nearer 30%."

"Azzam and Nature Iraq are masterminding steps to address this second drying. A large embankment across the Euphrates is being built to raise the level of the river, to flood a large area of the Central Marshes. This is just a stop-gap measure while work progresses on a long-term solution that will shut down one of Saddam's drainage canals, redistributing water using a network of regulators to ensure a ready supply of water to the Central Marshes."

[Doc_I.R.Q]

by god with this drought we all know the inevitable, vast amount of desalination plants need to be built in south of basra that will pump up water through a network into sea(najaf) and the rivers. Also with the tree's they should use gum tree's from adelaide. i think iraqi weather will grow it good if there is plent water.

[ardamir]

Desalination is a pipe-dream, especially for a place like Iraq with chronic electricity shortages. It takes immense amounts of power to produce and distribute the desalinated water and using it for something other than municipal purposes is not practical.

[SumerianKing]

ardamir, it would actually be no problem. The ministry of transportation actually said that we would be able to export electricity by around 1014 because of the huge quantity of power stations being built.

[fazl1991]

Originally Posted by SumerianKing

ardamir, it would actually be no problem. The ministry of transportation actually said that we would be able to export electricity by around 1014 because of the huge quantity of power stations being built.

which calender are u referring to hahahahahha

[SumerianKing]

The sumerian calendar, therefore after the conversion to the christian calendar, it will be approximately 46 years

[sheytanElKebir]

KHANAQIN, Kurdistan Region — After several years of blocking and releasing the Alwand River, Iranian authorities completely dammed the river from flowing into Iraq last week.

The Alwand River originates in western Iran and flows into eastern Iraq in the Khanaqin region. 40,000 acres of land, farms depend on this river for irrigation.

Muhanad Saadi, Iraq’s minister of water resources, told Rudaw, “Iran has not given us an explanation for this action even though we demanded one through Iraq’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs.”

Iran and Iraq share around 30 rivers that run through both countries. Iran has been blocking these rivers from flowing into Iraq by diverting their paths and building dams.

Tahir Mahoomd, director of Khanaqin’s water department, told Rudaw, “In the past, during certain seasons, the river used to reach 50 feet in some areas. However, since last month the river has completely dried up.”

Mahmood said that the river used to decrease about 7 feet each summer before Iraq’s liberation in 2003, but recently has decreased considerably.

Regarding the farms that depend on the river, Mahmood said, “The farmers used to plant summer and winter vegetables in the fields. Lack of irrigation water forced the farmers to abandon their land in summer, and this will hurt the farmers’ economic situation.”

The blocking of the Alwand River has caused drought to around 60 percent of the farmland in Khanaqin.

Ali Qasim, an engineer at the Khanaqin water department, says that the drought will also affect the drinking water in the city. “We have five water stations on the river to pump drinking water to the city. Currently, none of them are working.”

When the river is extremely low, he added, the water is mossy and dirty, not suitable for drinking. Qasim said that the drought will badly affect livestock as well.

Khalid Abass, director of Khanaqin Hospital, believes that the drought will cause diseases to spread in the area as people will be forced to use local wells for drinking water.

“The river cannot be used for drinking before the processes of sanitation, but some villagers are still drinking from it,” Abass said.

According to the Diyala water department, the province needs 7 square meters of water per second, but by blocking the river the Iranian government is not allowing this amount to reach the area.

Mahmood said that, in order to meet the needs of the farmland and orchards in the region, the government built a canal from the Sirwan River to the area. Some of the farmers dug wells to irrigate their fields. However, Mahmood said this will not solve the problem.

“The government is currently building a dam on the river and it will be finished around November,” he said. “This will solve most of the problem; it will guarantee drinking water and the extra will be used for irrigation purposes.”

Officials from Iraq’s Ministry of Water Resources are confident the dam will solve the problem. The dam extends 1,300 meters and has a budget of 30 billion dinars.

Salam Abdulla, member of a committee for protecting the interests of Khanaqin people, says, “We have been asking the Iraqi government to find a long-term solution for this problem, but they have failed to do so.”

A couple of months ago, an Iraqi delegation went to Tehran to discuss the issue, but didn’t reach an agreement.

The director of Khanaqin’s water department, who was among the delegation, said the Iranians responded by saying they didn’t have enough water for themselves either.