Once drained by Saddam, Iraq’s famed marshes are in peril again
chabaish (Iraq) — In the southern marshlands of Iraq, Firas Fadl steers his boat through tunnels of towering reeds, past floating villages and half-submerged water buffaloes in a unique region that seems a world apart from the rest of the arid Middle East.
The marshes, a lush remnant of the cradle of civilization, were reborn after the 2003 fall of Saddam Hussein when residents dismantled dams he had built a decade earlier to drain the area in order to root out Shia rebels. But now the largest wetlands in the Middle East are imperiled again, by government mismanagement and new upstream projects.
Fadl, at 26, has seen their steady decline in recent years as he has struggled to make a living by fishing the brackish waters. Upstream electrical dams and irrigation projects have reduced the flow of freshwater, allowing saltwater from the Arabian Gulf to seep in.
“The situation is good, it’s just the water is bad,” he said. “Ever since 2012, the water hasn’t been fresh.”
Farming and sewage runoff have depleted fishing stocks, forcing some fishermen to resort to using car batteries and chemicals. The flares of nearby oil wells light up the night sky, but the sweltering, humid region remains mired in poverty.
Iraqis who lived through that era speak of a paradise lost.
“The marshes were a state outside of Saddam’s control. The resources were a great boon,” recalls Fadel Duwaish, 84. “The marshes contained a wealth of fish, the wealth of raising water buffalo. You could turn the reeds into paper. All of the marsh was a treasure.”
Development along the Euphrates and Tigris rivers, particularly the construction of so-called mega dams under Turkey’s Southeast Anatolia Project, have caused a 4045 per cent reduction in downstream flow in the Euphrates alone, according to a 2015 report from Chatham house. The dams also block silt, depriving the rare ecosystem of life-giving nutrients, according to a UN report.
The marshes were declared a Unesco World Heritage Site in 2016. — AP