THE talk now is of rebuilding Iraq. How to once again fuse its fractured peoples, cultures and religions into a coherent society with a stable economy.
But for one very special corner of the country, a plan already exists. A small group of campaigners, backed by 20 expert scientists, has devised a way to restore the lower Mesopotamian marshlands, the largest wetland ecosystem in the Middle East, to their former glory. The marshes, which capture water and silt pouring from the mountains of Turkey and Iran, were the crucible of Western civilisation, home to the great cities of Babylon and Ur. Biblical scholars place the Garden of Eden here, and the Great Flood. Now the waters are all but gone, drained and poisoned as part of a genocidal campaign by Saddam Hussein鈥檚 regime against the Marsh Arabs who had lived there for millennia.
But there is a way to get the marshes back, says the restoration team. This week it has released a report called Eden Again that details how. By breaching the dams Saddam built, opening up long-closed sluice gates, and rebuilding a delicate network of earth dykes, the water can again be made to flow and the soils returned to their pristine state. It will be tough, the team admits, and to stand any chance of success the project must begin as soon as possible. But if it works, the trade, agriculture and fishing opportunities created by the restored marshes could become a beacon of hope for the rest of Iraq, helping to stabilise both the region and the country鈥檚 wider economy.
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The team is headed by Azzam Alwash, an Iraqi-American engineer, and his wife Suzie, a geologist at El Camino College in Torrance, California. They recruited a team of engineers, ecologists, hydrologists and soil chemists who together pored over scientific and technical papers, maps, satellite images and water and soil surveys describing the state of the region. Those documents, they believe, show the marshes are salvageable.
Surprisingly, it is the haste with which Saddam Hussein鈥檚 regime drained the marshes that will allow large swathes of soil to be recovered, says Curtis Richardson, director of the Duke University Wetland Center in Durham, North Carolina. 鈥淎 system like a marsh has a memory,鈥� agrees Thomas Crisman, director of the University of Florida鈥檚 Center for Wetlands in Gainesville, and adviser to the Eden Again project. Marsh soils naturally go through wet and dry seasons, and have fluctuating levels of nutrients and other chemicals. The sediments remaining in the dry soil will determine how it reacts to flooding. Phragmites reeds, tamarisk and cottonwood trees in the region have seeds adapted to surviving dry seasons, and those remaining in the desiccated soil may still be viable. But the process of restoring the water will have to be carefully controlled.
The US Army Corps of Engineers has expressed an interest in helping with the immediate task at hand 鈥� to remove ordnance and battlefield debris left over from the war between Iraq and Iran fought in the region in the 1980s. But then the real work begins.
The Eden Again team proposes to first reclaim the Hawizah marsh that straddles the border with Iran. This marsh is thought to be in the best condition, with large reed stands, trees, the greatest biodiversity, and soil that appears not to be too saline or contaminated by pesticides. The team plans to spend around 3 months confirming the state of the soil before opening sluice gates around the marsh to gradually reconnect the remaining fragmented pools of water and flood the region section by section. This could be done as early as November 2003.
Restoring the other wetlands, the great Central marsh, and the Hammar marsh to the south, will take longer. The first step will be to analyse soil samples for toxic contaminants and check the chemistry of the salt pans that have been identified from satellite images. The team has already taken some soil samples, but the coalition invasion this year has meant they have not yet been sent to the US for analysis. The fear is that the soil in some areas might be laden with sulphur, says Richardson. If it is, wetting it could produce sulphuric acid that would kill any remaining plants and seeds.
Once the Central and Hammar soils have been checked, the Eden Again team, working with local marsh people, will identify small areas to become pilot restoration projects. Soils that have been dry for years, or found to be saline or toxic, will be decontaminated by flushing them with water from the Euphrates. Those found to be seriously poisoned will be permanently sealed off by earth dams and not reflooded for at least 3 years, says the Eden Again report.
It will be a huge engineering task requiring help from the new Iraqi administration, the US government, private companies and the Marsh Arabs themselves. Designated areas such as Lake Hammar and Central marsh will be divided into holding ponds. Water will be channelled from one to another, flushing out salts and pesticides into individual pools that will be sealed off. Because the land is flat, high-capacity pumps similar to those used in open mines will be needed to shift the water.
Economic and environmental benefits
As the water returns, so will the fish and shrimp for which the marshes used to be a seasonal breeding ground. The Eden Again team estimates that a revitalised fishing industry, plus rice, barley and date crops from the region, and products such as mats made from reeds, could be worth some $620 million a year to the Iraqi economy. Dates were a major export crop before the 1991 Gulf war, and they could be growing again within 5 years.
Rejuvenated marshes would also help stem desertification and abate flash floods, reduce the frequency and severity of sandstorms that have increased since 1991, and improve the quality of southern Iraq鈥檚 rivers, estuaries and marine fisheries. But the possibility remains that with the water will comes a plague of mosquitoes, and with them an increase in malaria.
Thomas Naff, an expert in both Middle East studies and environmental science at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, agrees the marshes will be integral to the health of Iraq鈥檚 waterways and its post-war recovery. 鈥淵ou cannot provide the essential social and public health services without sufficient clean water.鈥�
But while the Hawizah marsh may be salvageable, he says, rescuing the others may cost too much. Restoring them would mean removing a lot of canals, dams and dykes and other structures. That would be perfectly feasible, he says. 鈥淏ut a political decision has to be made whether it is worth the money. That鈥檚 going to be a problem in Iraq 鈥� the cost could exceed $100 million.鈥�
There is also some concern that even when the marsh soils are restored, they will be less productive than they were. Turkey鈥檚 dams have held back vital nutrients for years, and desiccated topsoils may have been blown away. The rich soils of the Fertile Crescent will take years to restore, warns Richardson. But Tom Dunne, a hydrologist on the Eden Again team from the University of California at Santa Barbara, is more optimistic. Thick salt deposits in some areas may be protecting productive silt underneath, he hopes.
Suzie Alwash is confident progress can be made within a year. If the US government is unwilling to foot the bill, say as part of a 鈥淢arshall Plan鈥� for Iraq, the project鈥檚 advocates may approach oil companies which have an eye on reserves beneath the marshes. Another problem will be convincing Turkey to open its dams to allow more of the Euphrates and Tigris waters to reach Iraq. Saddam鈥檚 policy of desertification meant that he had no interest in such a deal; now the UN Environment Programme hopes to help negotiate one.
If the Eden Again project is to succeed, it will have to be taken over by Iraqis themselves. In the meantime, Azzam Alwash believes it will help rebuild trust between the West and the many people who fled the region after the abortive uprising against Saddam in 1991. 鈥淩estoration of the marshes is a great symbol, bringing back to life, from the dust and salt of the current destruction, the symbol of the start of Western civilisation,鈥� he says. 鈥淚 can hardly think of anything more symbolic to the rebirth of Iraq.鈥�
