The Guardian: Eden restored

Eden restored

An ambitious plan for the restoration of wetlands in Iraq will combine the ancient way of life of the returning Marsh Arab people with pioneering green technology. Stuart Coles reports

Guardian Unlimited - Friday November 23 2007


The marshlands restoration project covers an area of some 40,000 square miles. Photograph: Jonathan Tait-Harris

Saddam Hussein had scant regard for the largest wetlands in the Middle East, which teem with unique wildlife like the smooth-coated otter, Mesopotamian deer and Basra reed warbler. He saw them merely as a haven for hiding rebels and deserters from the Iran-Iraq War, and in the early 1990s, he ordered them to be drained.

By 2003, more than 90% of the Mesopotamian wetlands, dubbed the Garden of Eden, had been lost, and reduced to barren salt pans. Experts feared that the region, home to an ancient people considered the heirs of the Babylonians and Sumerians, would vanish by 2008.

Now, with a huge multibillion dollar restoration underway, funded by the US, Canadian and Italian governments and the United Nations environment programme (UNEP) many Ma'dan (Marsh Arabs) are returning to a life that has changed little in 5,000 years.

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