Posted on 08/24/2005 5:35:14 PM PDT by REactor
THE marshlands of southern Iraq, considered by some to be the inspiration for the biblical Garden of Eden, have recovered to nearly 40 per cent of their former glory since the toppling of Saddam Hussein.
The dictator's mismanagement turned much of the lush waterscape into arid salt flats. But yesterday a United Nations report on a multi-million-pound restoration project revealed new satellite imagery showing a big increase in water and vegetation cover in the past three years. The marshes have rebounded to about 37 per cent of their 1970 extent, from about 10 per cent in 2002.
"The evidence of their rapid revival is a positive signal, not only for the environment and the local communities who live there, but must be seen as a contribution to wider peace and security for the Iraqi people," Klaus Toepfer, the executive director of the United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP), said.
Saddam drained much of the Mesopotamian waters between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers by building dams, dykes and canals after the Marsh Arabs supported a Shiite Muslim rebellion following the 1991 Gulf War. Of almost 3,600 sq miles of marshes in 1970, the area had shrunk to 304 sq miles by 2002. As recently as 2001, some experts forecast the marshlands would disappear by 2008.
But restoration efforts since the fall of Saddam have reversed much of the damage, bringing the current marshland area to 1,400 sq miles.
Re-flooding the marshes requires a delicate balance of salt and plant life. "It will be very difficult to restore the entire marshlands," Iraq's minister of water resources, Abdul Latif Jamal Rashid, said.
Calling Saddam's draining of the marshlands "a crime against humanity", he said hoped 80 per cent of the marshlands would be restored in three years.
The UNEP has warned that more detailed field analysis of soil and water quality is need to gauge the exact state of rehabilitation.
"While the re-flooding bodes well for the Iraqi marshes, their recovery will take many years," Mr Toepfer said. "We must continue to monitor the situation carefully and make the necessary long-term investment in marshlands management."
However, Mr Rashid said the project also had other benefits, including a symbolic value for the Iraqi people and the potential to reduce migration to cities by improving agriculture.
"It will help Iraqis return to a traditional way of life," he said. "Even people in the capital, who have never seen the marshlands, are really proud of the project."
Iraqi engineers and tribes began re-flooding parts of the wetlands by cutting gashes in dykes in the euphoria of Saddam's ousting in 2003.
Last year, the UN announced a £6 million project, funded by Japan, to help restore the marshes and provide clean drinking water and sanitation for 100,000 people living there. The programme is providing settlements with water treatment systems and restoring reed beds that act as natural water filters. It is also training 250 Iraqis in wetland management and restoration.
At one time, the wetlands were the largest in the Middle East, filtering polluted water from northern cities and purifying it before it reached the southern rivers and the city of Basra.
But as Shiite Muslims in the region revolted, Saddam ordered thousands killed and built new dams, canals and pipelines to dry up the marshes - the source for fishing, boating and small-scale agriculture that once sustained a population of up to 500,000 people.
Azzam Alwash, the director of non-governmental organisation Eden Again, which is working to restore the marshes, said one of the difficulties facing the project was that dams built since the 1990s in the surrounding region, particularly Turkey, had disrupted the natural water cycles that helped nourish the wetlands.
And considered by still others NOT to be the INSPIRATION for the biblical Garden of Eden, but rather the faded and withered remnants of the literal Garden itself.
"Water of Life" in Scots Gaelic is "Uisge Beatha", pronounced "OOSH-kah Bay-ah" -- rendered in English "whisky."
The guys over there are doing good things and see first-hand that there are many successes in Iraq.
Some enterprising dot-com group should have a "good news from the battlefield" website that is factual, upbeat, and focuses on human interest. If there is a site like that, please post it since the MSM is only anti-war, anti-task, anti-Bush, and anti-success.
Is this any way to run a quagmire?
Southern Mesopotamia, where the Tigris and the Euphrates flowed, first separately, then united, towards the Persian Gulf, was more beguiling in history than in fact. Here were Babylon and Nineveh, here Sennacherib had fought his battles, here indeed, some said, had been the Garden of Eden at the start of the world. But it was a fearful country now. ... In the summer it was indescribably hot, in the winter unbearably cold. In the dry season everything was baked like leather, in the wet season 10,000 square miles were flooded, the waters gradually oozing away to leave malodorous wastes of marsh. Fleas, sand-flies and mosquitoes tormented the place, and its inhabitants lived lives of ignorant poverty, enlivened only by sporadic excitements of crime or brigandage, the illusions of religion and the consolations of sex.Is this the land of dear old Adam (one British soldier wondered),
And beautiful Mother Eve?
If so dear reader small blame to them
For sinning and having to leave..
-- James (Jan) Morris, Farewell the Trumpets.
What is the Liberal Media going to do when they realize Iraq has been totally rebuilt and better than anytime in the past 30 years? They are going to say it was a Miracle and happened overnight with no US military involvement at all.
I agree. Turn that sucker off!!! We can't have the press getting upset.
"Some enterprising dot com group should have a "good news from the battlefield" website that is factual, upbeat, and focuses on human interest".
There already is one. It's called "The Last Two weeks of Good News from Iraq" (Afghanistan)available from www.opinionjournal.com . A free e-mail service provided by the Wall Street Journal on a daily basis--On The Editorial Page and Best of the Web are sent every day.
"The Last Two Weeks..." is written by Arthur Chrenkoff, an Australian and is updated every two weeks. There are pages and pages and pages of what is actually going on in Iraq and Afghanistan--from the school and hospital construction, sewage plant construction, water purification plants, investments by various countries in oil, investment by individuals and corporations, assistance for children and women, etc--it's truly a staggering compilation which takes a long time to read. It is truly phenomenal--but of course you won't read it anywhere else. I believe Chrenkoff has his own blog so you may find it there too. It will knock those socks off!
I sent one of the Afghanistan reports to my husband's cousin at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan--he was thrilled to read that their efforts were being truthfully reported somewhere and in turn sent it to everyone on his address list to let them know "what we are doing here".
The MSM and the Dems are only interested in lies and distortions and who can trash our President the most--the truth is totally alien to them.
Mismanagement? Mismanagement?
He flipping deliberately set out to destroy the marsh to punish the people that live there and they dare call it mismanagement?
I think the quagmires are being revived, too.
bttt
Dude...You forgot to add a [/sarcasm on] tag.
I'm a bit new, I'll get there.
Mismanagement? Hardly. It was a deliberate attempt at genocide on the people who lived there.
Shhhhhhhh - word might get out about all the good we're doing . . . .
There is a great blog that has "Good news from Iraq Part (whatever)" about every two weeks. It may not be exactly what you're looking for, but it's REALLY good!
http://chrenkoff.blogspot.com
The latest post, containing good news from Iraq, can be found at:
http://chrenkoff.blogspot.com/2005/08/good-news-from-iraq-part-33.html
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