http://www.iraqcrisisbulletin.com/archives/040303/html/iraqi_marshes.html
The war in Iraq is taking place around the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers, what archaeologists call the cradle of Western civilization. The historic rivers flow into the Mesopotamian marshes, which Biblical scholars believe inspired the Garden of Eden. But in the last decade, those marshes have all but disappeared. The United Nations says the loss of the marshes is a catastrophe on the order of the deforestation of the Amazon rainforests, or the drying of the Aral Sea. The UN Environmental Program this week said restoring those marshes should be a part of postwar reconstruction.
As a young boy, civil engineer Azzam Alwash remembers paddling through narrow channels between the reeds in the Mesopotamian marshes. He says reeds six meters high lined the winding waterways:
"You're passing through these waterways surrounded by reeds. And you're pushing yourself through and then suddenly you go into an opening. And right in front of your opening you see a settlement of huts that are woven out of these reed beds. You see water buffalo frolicking in the water. You see kids sitting on the banks of these artificial islands fishing."
These settlements belong to the Marsh Arabs, a civilization that traces its roots back five thousand years. Archaeologists believe the Marsh Arabs are descended from the Sumerians, who built the world's first recorded civilization on the banks of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers.