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Iraq's Marsh Arabs test the waters as wetlands ruined by Saddam are reborn
In the country’s southern marshes, the government is helping families to rebuild their floating communities, 25 years after the land was drained
An Iraqi Marsh Arab paddles her boat at the Chebayesh marsh in Nassiriya. Saddam Hussein mounted a campaign against the Marsh Arabs in the 1990s to destroy their lifestyle. Photograph: Thaier Al-Sudani/Reuters
Peter Schwartzstein in Ishan al-Ghubbah
Wednesday 18 January 2017 09.00 GMTLast modified on Friday 24 March 2017 10.20 GMT
The morning of 20 January 1992 began much like any other for the Mohammed family in the marshlands of southern Iraq. Rising at first light, they roused their herd of buffaloes and drove the beasts snorting and protesting into the surrounding wetlands to graze. After a quick breakfast of bread and yoghurt, washed down with sugary tea, they readied themselves for a long day out on the water.
But on that day, one of the coldest on record, five-year-old Hanaa and her mother caught no fish and gathered no reeds. No sooner had they paddled past the last of their neighbours’ floating reed houses than a squadron of government fighter jets emerged from the mist, guns blazing. They reduced the artificial islets to embers, and killed many of the buffaloes. Not content with shooting up a few villages as punishment for locals’ alleged harbouring of defeated Shia rebels, Saddam Hussein soon dispatched his engineers to divert the Tigris and Euphrates rivers away from the marshes. The effects were disastrous. By the turn of the last century, the Middle East’s largest wetlands had withered from a peak of 20,000 sq km to almost nothing.
Satellite view of the wetlands in southern Iraq in February 2000, and in February 2010. Photograph: Modis/Terra/Nasa
“There were no fish, no grasses, so of course we couldn’t stay,” remembers Hanaa, now in her 20s and a mother of four. “The village just died.”
However, in March this year, almost 25 years since she and her siblings were pushed off their land and into the slums of a nearby city, Hanaa and some of her former neighbours will be making a triumphant homecoming.
Authorities in Baghdad are rebuilding these lost communities. They are keen to resettle properly at least some of the roughly 250,000 Marsh Arabs who have trickled back to the area since it was partially re-flooded more than 10 years ago. At a time when some 3 million other Iraqishave been displaced by Isis-fuelled violence, officials see this as a crucial step in righting the wrongs of a previous conflict.
“These are our marshes, they’re a key part of our heritage, and we’re doing everything we can to get the water to them to preserve them,” said Hassan Janabi, the minister of water resources. In July, Iraq’s marshes were listed as a Unesco world heritage site.
Last summer, the ministry sent in an excavator to dredge up tonnes of wetland mud and mould it into 43 islands. The soon-to-be-residents, all of whom lived here before it was drained, are building their own houses. Most turned to the old tribal sheikh for mediation in divvying up the properties.
Life in these picture-postcard villages could be tough and unforgiving. Few had schools, even fewer had a health clinic, and none had electricity. It’s the memory of these less than idyllic conditions that appears to have persuaded many of the returnees to rebuild along the roads that Saddam’s army created through the marshes – where the amenities are superior – rather than chancing their luck out on the open water.
The new Ghubbah will be better laid out and equipped than its previous incarnation, local proponents of the plan say. With an entire island dedicated to “infrastructure”, notably a classroom and a water filtration system, it will boast facilities of which its former residents can be proud.
Many of them, particularly those who spent a decade in exile in neighbouring Iran, will just be pleased to return home. “Everything we do – from buffalo breeding to fishing – is connected to the water, so it’s good to live in the middle of the water,” said Haidar Hammeed, whose family have gone from one temporary lodging to another over the past few years. “It’s more practical.”
Coming at a time of conflict and low oil prices, which has seen the ministry of water resources’ allocation from the state’s capital investment fund cut from $1.7bn (£1.4bn) in 2013 to $90m (£73m) in 2016, some wonder if this is the best use of scarce resources. But the minister and local NGOs insist this is no mere aesthetic exercise.
FacebookTwitterPinterest
Abu Sabah, a Marsh Arab, cuts down reeds at the Chebayesh marsh in Nassiriya. Photograph: Thaier Al-Sudani / Reuters/Reuters
Ever since the Marsh Arabs were pushed into exile, their unique culture has been steadily eroded by more socially conservative norms. Where once they sang and danced at weddings, “now they only serve food”, says Jassim al-Asadi, director of Nature Iraq’s southern operations and a native of the marshes.
Women once worked almost as equals in the marshes – during their years away their role has changed. In the new towns along the military roads, some women are no longer allowed to work, while more are now dressed in niqabs.
Ultimately, though, there might not be much Baghdad or the people themselves can do to preserve the marshes in the long term. Turkey has built at least 34 large dams on the Euphrates and Tigris and their tributaries, which have reduced the amount of water reaching Iraq and, at the same time, reduced rainfall has affected the north of the country.
The region’s unquenchable thirst might engineer what Saddam never did: a permanent destruction of the marshes.
https://www.theguardian.com/global-...ands-ruined-by-saddam-reborn-southern-marshes
Hopefully it can be preserved for a long time to come.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marsh_Arabs
This below is also fantastic news:
Iraq’s Marsh Arabs more optimistic after World Heritage statusSTORY
November 23, 2016
23 November 2016 ̶ The Marshlands of Mesopotamia in southern Iraq are a rare aquatic landscape in the desert, and a biodiversity hotspot for key migratory birds.
“They are a unique ecosystem regionally and globally where we see the largest river system in the Middle East, a rich biodiversity, and historical monuments that date back 5,000 years,” says UN Environment Marshlands expert Diane Klaimi.
23 November 2016 ̶ The Marshlands of Mesopotamia in southern Iraq are a rare aquatic landscape in the desert, and a biodiversity hotspot for key migratory birds.
“They are a unique ecosystem regionally and globally where we see the largest river system in the Middle East, a rich biodiversity, and historical monuments that date back 5,000 years,” says UN Environment Marshlands expert Diane Klaimi.
Since the 1970s, upstream dam construction, drainage for agriculture, oil exploration, war, drought, desertification and climate change have damaged this valuable ecosystem.
The population shrank from half a million in the 1950s to about 20,000 following the draining of the marshes in the 1980s and 1990s by Saddam Hussein, who tried to drive the marsh Arabs out of their homes. By 2003, the Marshlands existed only in name. But the population has rebounded since then.
Today’s “Marsh Arabs” live in secluded villages of reed houses. They fish, grow rice and rear water buffalo.
Photo Credit: Jassim Al-Asadi 2016
People are more optimistic about the future since the listing of the Marshlands as a World Heritage site in July 2016.
“Marsh Arabs are delighted with the newly achieved World Heritage status for the Iraqi marshlands. They believe it will help preserve not only the marshes but their way of life and culture,” says Jassim Al-Asadi, director of Nature Iraq, a non-governmental organization working on the marshes.
The marshes cover four governorates: Thi Qar, Missan, Basra and Al-Warkaa.
“Having our marshes on the World Heritage list is a big `dream come true’ for us. Our life will be better, income will be better and we hope tourism will prosper thanks to the World Heritage status conferred by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization,” says Razaq Jabar, a boatman, fisherman and singer. Aged 51 and a father of 15, Razaq fled the marshes in 1993 but returned 22 years later.
“Marshes and more water mean life. We hope that the World Heritage status can help us rebuild our land,” says Hamza Mohamed, a buffalo herder in the marshes.
Locally fishers, such as Salwa Tureer, hope to see their marshes in a better condition with more water.
The hope is that the new status will attract more Government funding to support marshland communities, and put the marshes on the map internationally. Local people also hope improved security will attract domestic and international tourists.
Boost for biodiversity?
Al-Asadi believes the new status will help raise awareness locally of the importance of preserving biological diversity and sustainable livelihoods.
“There are a number of things we need to do: We need to carry out further studies on the marshland ecosystems, assess how human activity is affecting the local environment, and get local businesses involved in schemes to maintain and protect the environment. The development of eco-tourism could also channel funds into environmental protection measures.”
Marsh dwellers in southern Iraq are closely connected to their wetland surroundings, he says. Their entire way of life ̶ buffalo herding, reed harvesting and fishing ̶ depends on the maintenance of this ecosystem. They derive material and spiritual sustenance from it.
Photo Credit: Jassim Al-Asadi 2016
Note of caution
“The achievement of World Heritage status is an incredible achievement for Iraq, and is the fruit of several years of collaboration between Iraqi institutions and UN Environment,” says Klaimi.
Before the achievement of World Heritage listing, UN Environment had been working to develop and promote a “sustainable management plan” for the marshes.
“The plan will need more funding in future for on-the-ground capacity building in government planning departments in the environment, culture, water, oil and agriculture ministries,” she said.
UN Environment has been working with partners since 2004 to restore the marshlands to their former glory. It supported the Government in its efforts to win World Heritage status.
For more information, please contact: Diane Klaimi: Diane.Klaimi [at] unep.org
http://web.unep.org/stories/story/iraq’s-marsh-arabs-more-optimistic-after-world-heritage-status
@TheCamelGuy @SALMAN F (stop trolling and return as the old original Salman) @Malik Alashter
In the country’s southern marshes, the government is helping families to rebuild their floating communities, 25 years after the land was drained
An Iraqi Marsh Arab paddles her boat at the Chebayesh marsh in Nassiriya. Saddam Hussein mounted a campaign against the Marsh Arabs in the 1990s to destroy their lifestyle. Photograph: Thaier Al-Sudani/Reuters
Peter Schwartzstein in Ishan al-Ghubbah
Wednesday 18 January 2017 09.00 GMTLast modified on Friday 24 March 2017 10.20 GMT
The morning of 20 January 1992 began much like any other for the Mohammed family in the marshlands of southern Iraq. Rising at first light, they roused their herd of buffaloes and drove the beasts snorting and protesting into the surrounding wetlands to graze. After a quick breakfast of bread and yoghurt, washed down with sugary tea, they readied themselves for a long day out on the water.
But on that day, one of the coldest on record, five-year-old Hanaa and her mother caught no fish and gathered no reeds. No sooner had they paddled past the last of their neighbours’ floating reed houses than a squadron of government fighter jets emerged from the mist, guns blazing. They reduced the artificial islets to embers, and killed many of the buffaloes. Not content with shooting up a few villages as punishment for locals’ alleged harbouring of defeated Shia rebels, Saddam Hussein soon dispatched his engineers to divert the Tigris and Euphrates rivers away from the marshes. The effects were disastrous. By the turn of the last century, the Middle East’s largest wetlands had withered from a peak of 20,000 sq km to almost nothing.
Satellite view of the wetlands in southern Iraq in February 2000, and in February 2010. Photograph: Modis/Terra/Nasa
“There were no fish, no grasses, so of course we couldn’t stay,” remembers Hanaa, now in her 20s and a mother of four. “The village just died.”
However, in March this year, almost 25 years since she and her siblings were pushed off their land and into the slums of a nearby city, Hanaa and some of her former neighbours will be making a triumphant homecoming.
Authorities in Baghdad are rebuilding these lost communities. They are keen to resettle properly at least some of the roughly 250,000 Marsh Arabs who have trickled back to the area since it was partially re-flooded more than 10 years ago. At a time when some 3 million other Iraqishave been displaced by Isis-fuelled violence, officials see this as a crucial step in righting the wrongs of a previous conflict.
“These are our marshes, they’re a key part of our heritage, and we’re doing everything we can to get the water to them to preserve them,” said Hassan Janabi, the minister of water resources. In July, Iraq’s marshes were listed as a Unesco world heritage site.
Last summer, the ministry sent in an excavator to dredge up tonnes of wetland mud and mould it into 43 islands. The soon-to-be-residents, all of whom lived here before it was drained, are building their own houses. Most turned to the old tribal sheikh for mediation in divvying up the properties.
Life in these picture-postcard villages could be tough and unforgiving. Few had schools, even fewer had a health clinic, and none had electricity. It’s the memory of these less than idyllic conditions that appears to have persuaded many of the returnees to rebuild along the roads that Saddam’s army created through the marshes – where the amenities are superior – rather than chancing their luck out on the open water.
The new Ghubbah will be better laid out and equipped than its previous incarnation, local proponents of the plan say. With an entire island dedicated to “infrastructure”, notably a classroom and a water filtration system, it will boast facilities of which its former residents can be proud.
Many of them, particularly those who spent a decade in exile in neighbouring Iran, will just be pleased to return home. “Everything we do – from buffalo breeding to fishing – is connected to the water, so it’s good to live in the middle of the water,” said Haidar Hammeed, whose family have gone from one temporary lodging to another over the past few years. “It’s more practical.”
Coming at a time of conflict and low oil prices, which has seen the ministry of water resources’ allocation from the state’s capital investment fund cut from $1.7bn (£1.4bn) in 2013 to $90m (£73m) in 2016, some wonder if this is the best use of scarce resources. But the minister and local NGOs insist this is no mere aesthetic exercise.
FacebookTwitterPinterest
Abu Sabah, a Marsh Arab, cuts down reeds at the Chebayesh marsh in Nassiriya. Photograph: Thaier Al-Sudani / Reuters/Reuters
Ever since the Marsh Arabs were pushed into exile, their unique culture has been steadily eroded by more socially conservative norms. Where once they sang and danced at weddings, “now they only serve food”, says Jassim al-Asadi, director of Nature Iraq’s southern operations and a native of the marshes.
Women once worked almost as equals in the marshes – during their years away their role has changed. In the new towns along the military roads, some women are no longer allowed to work, while more are now dressed in niqabs.
Ultimately, though, there might not be much Baghdad or the people themselves can do to preserve the marshes in the long term. Turkey has built at least 34 large dams on the Euphrates and Tigris and their tributaries, which have reduced the amount of water reaching Iraq and, at the same time, reduced rainfall has affected the north of the country.
The region’s unquenchable thirst might engineer what Saddam never did: a permanent destruction of the marshes.
- Travel for this article was supported by Internews’ Earth Journalism Network
https://www.theguardian.com/global-...ands-ruined-by-saddam-reborn-southern-marshes
Hopefully it can be preserved for a long time to come.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marsh_Arabs
This below is also fantastic news:
Iraq’s Marsh Arabs more optimistic after World Heritage status
November 23, 2016
23 November 2016 ̶ The Marshlands of Mesopotamia in southern Iraq are a rare aquatic landscape in the desert, and a biodiversity hotspot for key migratory birds.
“They are a unique ecosystem regionally and globally where we see the largest river system in the Middle East, a rich biodiversity, and historical monuments that date back 5,000 years,” says UN Environment Marshlands expert Diane Klaimi.
23 November 2016 ̶ The Marshlands of Mesopotamia in southern Iraq are a rare aquatic landscape in the desert, and a biodiversity hotspot for key migratory birds.
“They are a unique ecosystem regionally and globally where we see the largest river system in the Middle East, a rich biodiversity, and historical monuments that date back 5,000 years,” says UN Environment Marshlands expert Diane Klaimi.
Since the 1970s, upstream dam construction, drainage for agriculture, oil exploration, war, drought, desertification and climate change have damaged this valuable ecosystem.
The population shrank from half a million in the 1950s to about 20,000 following the draining of the marshes in the 1980s and 1990s by Saddam Hussein, who tried to drive the marsh Arabs out of their homes. By 2003, the Marshlands existed only in name. But the population has rebounded since then.
Today’s “Marsh Arabs” live in secluded villages of reed houses. They fish, grow rice and rear water buffalo.
Photo Credit: Jassim Al-Asadi 2016
People are more optimistic about the future since the listing of the Marshlands as a World Heritage site in July 2016.
“Marsh Arabs are delighted with the newly achieved World Heritage status for the Iraqi marshlands. They believe it will help preserve not only the marshes but their way of life and culture,” says Jassim Al-Asadi, director of Nature Iraq, a non-governmental organization working on the marshes.
The marshes cover four governorates: Thi Qar, Missan, Basra and Al-Warkaa.
“Having our marshes on the World Heritage list is a big `dream come true’ for us. Our life will be better, income will be better and we hope tourism will prosper thanks to the World Heritage status conferred by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization,” says Razaq Jabar, a boatman, fisherman and singer. Aged 51 and a father of 15, Razaq fled the marshes in 1993 but returned 22 years later.
“Marshes and more water mean life. We hope that the World Heritage status can help us rebuild our land,” says Hamza Mohamed, a buffalo herder in the marshes.
Locally fishers, such as Salwa Tureer, hope to see their marshes in a better condition with more water.
The hope is that the new status will attract more Government funding to support marshland communities, and put the marshes on the map internationally. Local people also hope improved security will attract domestic and international tourists.
Boost for biodiversity?
Al-Asadi believes the new status will help raise awareness locally of the importance of preserving biological diversity and sustainable livelihoods.
“There are a number of things we need to do: We need to carry out further studies on the marshland ecosystems, assess how human activity is affecting the local environment, and get local businesses involved in schemes to maintain and protect the environment. The development of eco-tourism could also channel funds into environmental protection measures.”
Marsh dwellers in southern Iraq are closely connected to their wetland surroundings, he says. Their entire way of life ̶ buffalo herding, reed harvesting and fishing ̶ depends on the maintenance of this ecosystem. They derive material and spiritual sustenance from it.
Photo Credit: Jassim Al-Asadi 2016
Note of caution
“The achievement of World Heritage status is an incredible achievement for Iraq, and is the fruit of several years of collaboration between Iraqi institutions and UN Environment,” says Klaimi.
Before the achievement of World Heritage listing, UN Environment had been working to develop and promote a “sustainable management plan” for the marshes.
“The plan will need more funding in future for on-the-ground capacity building in government planning departments in the environment, culture, water, oil and agriculture ministries,” she said.
UN Environment has been working with partners since 2004 to restore the marshlands to their former glory. It supported the Government in its efforts to win World Heritage status.
For more information, please contact: Diane Klaimi: Diane.Klaimi [at] unep.org
http://web.unep.org/stories/story/iraq’s-marsh-arabs-more-optimistic-after-world-heritage-status
@TheCamelGuy @SALMAN F (stop trolling and return as the old original Salman) @Malik Alashter
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