Climate change and pollution threaten Iraq’s ancient marshes
Jassim Al-Asadi was born in a boat in the marshes of southern Iraq. Sixty-six years after his birth, his life still revolves around the marshes, and today he is an environmental activist and water resources engineer fighting to save the marshes from extinction.
“These spaces used to be green pastures and cane fields, but today the place has completely dried up,” Al-Asadi said, as he walked in the sweltering heat through a landscape of cracked barren land. “There you see a house where a buffalo breeder used to live, but he abandoned it and moved nearby.” From the Euphrates River. There are no pastures for buffalo anymore.”
The Marsh Arabs, an indigenous population of Iraq’s wetlands, have fished and grown crops on these lands for 5,000 years. They also raised water buffalo and built reed houses on floating islands where the Tigris and Euphrates rivers meet before flowing into the Gulf. .
But climate change, water pollution, oil exploration and upstream dam construction threaten the survival of this delicate ecosystem and its ancient Mesopotamian culture, some of which dates back to the Sumerians.
Al-Asadi is the head of Nature Iraq, a leading group in the field of environmental conservation. He confirmed that the drought wave is entering its fourth year today and has turned vast areas of wetlands and thriving agricultural lands into desert lands. Salinity is also rising in the shrinking canals and waterways, killing fish and making buffalo sick.
Al-Asadi worked for more than 30 years as an engineer in the Iraqi Ministry of Water Resources. “The environment is undergoing radical change,” he explained. “One of the causes is climate change and its impact on water levels in the Euphrates and Tigris in Iraq.”
When Al-Asadi was a child in the marshes, he saw hunters wandering among the reeds and buffalo bathing among the lush vegetation, but this image is rare today.
According to a report issued by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations and the Iraqi Ministry of Agriculture in July, the current drought is the worst in 40 years. The region’s rich wildlife, including many migratory birds, is at risk, and buffalo breeders and farmers are forced to migrate in precarious conditions to urban areas such as Basra, Najaf and Baghdad.
Haider Mohamed’s life depends on his flock. Although he lives next to a waterway near Chibayish in the central marshes, he must bring fresh water from elsewhere to feed the buffalo, which produce milk, meat and dung for fuel.
Mohammed, in his twenties, said: “The water here is salty and polluted. We used to have 70 buffalo, but only 20 survived. The rest died or were sold.” Far from the line of green reeds surrounding his house, the change is dramatic, with the swamps disappearing into dry, salty, deeply rugged land.
“Our lives depend on water”
Sheikh Lebanon Abdel Khayoun warned that a thousands-year-old way of life based on breeding, fishing and harvesting may disappear unless the necessary measures are taken immediately.
He said: “Our lives here depend mainly on water. If these swamps dry up, we will face a serious livelihood problem.” He sat, a beaded rosary in his hand, drinking tea inside a hostel, a traditional reed structure that serves as a meeting place for the Marsh Arabs, or ma’dan as they are known in Arabic.
“We are neither traders nor employees, and we have no other professions that provide us with income. The marshes are the profession of our fathers and grandfathers,” he continued, estimating that the livelihoods of between three and four million people depend on the marsh ecosystem.
The marshes are a UNESCO World Heritage Site thanks to their biological diversity and cultural value, but their contemporary history has faced many turmoil. Saddam Hussein drained the area by building trenches to expel rebels in the 1990s, reducing the water level by 90 percent. Tens of thousands also immigrated to the United States and Europe, but after the fall of the regime, the trenches were removed and water and metal returned.
Pollution and oil
The United Nations Environment Program has identified Iraq among the countries most vulnerable to climate change due to a combination of high temperatures, lack of rain, drought, water scarcity, and frequent sand and dust storms.
In addition to recurring droughts, pollution contributes to environmental deterioration in the region, as millions of cubic meters of industrial waste are dumped into the rivers and waterways that feed the marshes, according to environmentalists.
Activists assert that pollution resulting from fossil fuel projects in Basra Governorate, which contains most of Iraq’s vast oil and gas reserves, has reached alarming levels and is a prominent source of cancer, kidney failure, and other diseases.
Fadwa Tohme from the local non-governmental organization Ozone stressed, for her part, that “Basra is currently witnessing severe pollution in terms of water, soil and air, in addition to food pollution,” adding that extreme heat and desertification are fueling the climate catastrophe in the region.
She continued, saying: “There were 30 million palm trees in Basra, but today there are less than a million palm trees. In the past, green cover covered the desert, but today there is no shield against the evil of wind and dust.”
During a visit by the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Türk, to southern Iraq last August, he stressed that the country is experiencing a climate emergency and the world must confront this era of boiling. In 50 degrees Celsius heat, Turk visited an area that was once lush with palm trees but is now a dry, barren field.
What is happening today gives us a glimpse into a future that is now imminent in other regions of the world, if we continue to shirk our responsibility to take preventive measures to mitigate the effects of climate change.
United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk
In an open letter ahead of COP28 in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, Türk urged negotiators to move away from short-sighted decisions and place human rights at the heart of climate action.
Regional cooperation
Al-Asadi, who participated in several water management projects to achieve a balance between the environment, agriculture, and marsh restoration, stressed that the problem of water scarcity extends beyond Iraq’s borders and called for adopting a regional solution.
He blamed neighboring Turkey and Iran for building dams upstream with little regard to international treaties. Al-Asadi said that as the water crisis worsens due to climate change, the countries of the Tigris and Euphrates Basin must cooperate to implement human rights to water and development and put aside rivalries.
In Iraq, OHCHR supports the efforts of civil society groups and human rights defenders for safe access to water for all and for sustainable and equitable use of water.
Al-Asadi said that the struggle for human rights and the marshes is worth it despite the dangers looming in the air, as environmental activists in Iraq regularly face threats, harassment, and arbitrary detention. Earlier this year, an unidentified armed group kidnapped and beat Al-Asadi, then released him two weeks later.
He concluded by saying: “The marshes are not only a component of the environment and economy, but they also constitute a unique culture.”
