'Garden of Eden' dying of poison

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'Garden of Eden' dying of poison

 

Source >

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1462893,00.html

 

5,000-year-old Marsh Arab haven is devastated by

fishermen's use of chemicals and electric shocks

 

Rory Carroll in Baghdad

Tuesday April 19, 2005

The Guardian

 

Farmers and fishermen are devastating Iraq's marshes,

considered by some to be the site of the Garden of

Eden, with uncontrolled use of chemicals and fishing

using electric shocks, researchers warned yesterday.

 

The illegal methods are wiping out wildlife, polluting

water, endangering human health and undermining the

recovery of one of the world's great wetlands, they

say.

 

The marshes are part of what British troops stationed

there call Iraq's " wild, wild east " , a remote, lawless

region where impoverished communities have a tradition

of defying authority.

 

Since the US-led invasion toppled Saddam Hussein two

years ago there has been a boom in the use of

electroshocking - nets attached to car batteries - to

catch fish, says Iraq Nature, an environmental group.

 

Many of the fish not caught are left sterilised or

dead, the rotting bodies spawning organic matter which

uses up oxygen that in turn allows bacteria to

flourish, upsetting the ecological balance.

 

The damage is made worse by farmers using chemicals

intended to treat lice in sheep as pesticides for

their crops and by hunters using poison to catch

birds.

 

The deputy health minister, Amer al-Khuza'i, yesterday

urged Iraq's most revered cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali

al-Sistani, to issue a fatwa against misuse of the

chemicals and poison.

 

Originally twice the size of the Florida Everglades,

the 8,000 square miles of marshes - an area bigger

than Yorkshire - were fed by the Tigris and Euphrates

rivers and were home to hundreds of species of birds

and fish.

 

The 5,000-year-old Marsh Arab culture, based on

artificial islands and houses made from tall reeds, is

considered a cradle of civilisation.

 

The Marsh Arabs were accused of helping and harbouring

rebels and outlaws during the failed Shia uprising

against Saddam after the 1991 Gulf war, prompting a

devastating crackdown.

 

Thousands were killed and a gargantuan dyke-building

programme drained the marshes to just 7% of their

original extent, a catastrophe compared to the drying

up of the Aral sea in central Asia and the

deforestation of the Amazon.

 

When coalition troops overthrew the regime, the

surviving Marsh Arabs broke many of the dykes and

water flooded back, restoring much of the wetland.

Earlier this year the journal Science reported the

return of giant reeds, water birds and otters,

prompting optimism that recovery was under way.

 

But Iraq Nature researchers who have visited the

region each month for the past year said thousands of

fishermen were boosting their catch by connecting

cheap car batteries with cables to two-metre (6ft)

poles with nets. The 12-volt shock electrocuted fish

within a 5-metre radius, yielding 20kg of fish each

day per fisherman.

 

" They know it is wrong but they are poor and say it is

the only way to feed their families, " said Raied

Hameed, one of the researchers. " It is a very serious

problem for the marshes. "

 

The Iraqi police and army seldom ventured into the

countryside and the British forces know better than to

inflame protests by intervening, he added.

 

With few schools, clinics, roads or jobs the region

sees little reason to obey authorities which

historically have been at best neglectful, at worst

murderous.

 

Anna Sophia Bachmann, an adviser to Iraq Nature, said

electroshocking probably started in the 80s during the

chaos of war with Iran and resumed with a vengeance

with the partial restoration of the marshes two years

ago.

 

In a separate warning, Qais al-Salman, head of the

National Institute of Environmental and Water

Technology, said the marsh's farmers and hunters could

unleash a " complete disaster " for public health and

the environment.

 

Birds which recently started to return were being

poisoned and sold in markets.

 

Veterinary chemicals intended for sheep were being

used to dust crops and poison fish, he said.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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