Chibayish: Iraq’s vast marshland is the iconic home of the Biblical Garden of Eden, but waterways are drying up and so full of garbage that their very existence is at risk, activists have warned.
“For 6,000 or 7,000 years residents have protected the marshes,” said Raad Asadi, director of the Chibayish Organization for Ecotourism, who this week began work on a boat to try to clear some of the worst areas of garbage .
“But we have reached a stage where swamps are at risk of extinction.”
The swamps between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers are one of the largest inland deltas in the world.
The wetlands barely escaped the wrath of dictator Saddam Hussein, who in 1991 ordered further hunting as punishment for the communities protecting the rebels.
But after Saddam’s coup, Iraq pledged to preserve ecosystems and provide functional services to marsh communities, and inscribed them in 2016 as a UNESCO World Heritage Site for both their biodiversity and their ancient history Went.
Tourists are back, but one of the main visible sources of pollution in the area are visitors who throw away their “plastic waste”, Asadi said.
After decades of brutal warfare, Iraq lacks structures for collection and disposal of waste, and according to data compiled by the United Nations and academics, 70 percent of its industrial waste is dumped directly into rivers or the sea.
A team of 10 people joins the boat, traversing a maze of narrow waterways collecting the piles of plastic bottles that fill the channels, and urging people to “respect our land” and not To dustbin.
But it is far from the only threat: a host of environmental problems, including drought and desertification in Iraq, threaten access to water and livelihoods across the country.
The United Nations has classified Iraq as the “fifth most vulnerable country in the world” to climate change, which has seen record low rainfall and high temperatures in recent years.
The water level of the marsh is falling, a phenomenon created by repeated droughts and dams built over two rivers between Iraq’s upstream neighbors, Turkey and Iran.
“There is a threat to this ecosystem, which has significant biodiversity,” said French ambassador Eric Chevalier at Thursday’s launch of the French-funded boat project.
Chevalier called for “much mobilization, Iraqi and international, to address all the challenges” that a heating planet is creating.
A series of sandstorms have engulfed Iraq in recent weeks, leaving thousands in need of medical care due to respiratory problems.
The Middle East has always been affected by dust and sand storms, but in recent years they have become more frequent and intense.
This trend is linked to overuse of river water, more dams, overgrazing and deforestation.
Swamp garbage collectors aren’t the only unusual teams: Earlier this year, the Iraqi Green Climate Organization launched a veterinary ambulance to help farmers treat their buffalo.