In previous issues of the Review, we’ve discussed what is arguably the greatest crime of intentionally wrought environmental mass destruction in the history of mankind: Saddam Hussein’s destruction of 95 percent of the Mesopotamian marshes. Hundreds of thousands of Marsh Arabs witnessed the wholesale destruction of their way of life. A quarter of a million of them now populate refugee camps or crowd into Iraq’s crumbling cities.

Once the Mesopotamian marshes, critical habitat for hundreds of species of birds and fish as well as aquatic plant life, covered nearly 13,000 square miles of lower Iraq at the confluence of the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers. The Baathists drained them to punish the rebellious Marsh Arabs in the aftermath of the Gulf War. Through deliberate diversion of water and the destruction of 5,000 year old banks and islands, they succeeded in damaging the ecology of all southern Iraq, and of the Persian Gulf.

We’ve also discussed the efforts of local Iraqis to regenerate the marshland through destruction of floodgates and dikes. The UN Environmental Program now estimates that perhaps 20 percent of the area has been reflooded, but much of it with contaminated water.

Now Japan has committed $11 million to a United Nations project to help restore the marsh. The project will fund the construction of many small-scale water treatment plants throughout the area, and cultivate new reed bed habitats that both purify the water and serve as wildlife habitat. (BBC News)

–From July 2004 Austin Review KB