Photo: IRIN
Water is returning to some of the former marshes
BAGHDAD, 16 March 2009 (IRIN) - On 12 March the Iraqi government and a number of UN agencies launched a $47 million initiative to remove dykes and canals built by the regime of former President Saddam Hussein so that water can flow back into marshland areas.
The aim is to help the government strengthen services, build better governance systems, and develop agriculture and public services in these areas.
"People living in the marshlands are some of the poorest and most badly provided with basic services," David Shearer, UN deputy special representative of the Secretary-General, said in a statement on 12 March.
Reviving Iraq's marshlands, the largest wetland ecosystem in the Middle East, is an urgent environmental and humanitarian task which will need national, regional and international efforts, a local official who preferred anonymity has said.
The marshlands, with their once rich biodiversity, have been damaged significantly [http://marshlands.unep.or.jp/] since the 1970s due to upstream dam construction and drainage operations by Saddam's regime.
Displaced
Other problems include water quality degradation caused by sewage, high levels of salinity, and pollution from pesticides and untreated industrial effluent; many people have been displaced.
The UN Environment Programme (UNEP) and the UN/World Bank Needs Assessment Initiative for the Reconstruction of Iraq have identified damage to the marshlands and the resultant displacement as a major disaster.
"Billions of dollars are needed to implement projects to maintain livelihoods for the inhabitants [of the marshlands]. Also needed is cooperation by both Turkey and Iran to release [more] water to Iraq," Hamid al-Dhalimi, a member of Basra Provincial Council and head of the Marshlands Committee, said.
"Low water levels mean high levels of salinity and this affects papyrus, reeds, fish, birds and cattle which are essential for the inhabitants' lives… Water levels have reduced to almost half what they were in 2003," he said.
The government has been spending US$50 million a year since 2006 to boost marshland livelihoods, but recent falls in the water level had forced returnees to leave the area once more, he said.
Iraq's Ministry of Marshlands has earmarked $5 million for the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) as part of efforts to launch a programme of sustainable agricultural development. "The government of Iraq is helping people to return to abandoned areas of the marshlands," Iraq's state minister for marshlands, Hassan al-Sari said.
However, the new UN/Iraqi initiative may not be enough to tempt people like Radhi Mohammed Khayon, a 44-year-old inhabitant of Basra's marshlands, to stay there.
"I'll wait until June," he said. "If water flows again and work on projects is kicked off then I will stay. If not then we will pack up and find a place near the city."
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