Water of life is flowing again through Iraq's Garden of Eden

THE marshlands of southern Iraq, considered by some to be the inspiration for the biblical Garden of Eden, have recovered to nearly 40 per cent of their former glory since the toppling of Saddam Hussein.

The dictator's mismanagement turned much of the lush waterscape into arid salt flats. But yesterday a United Nations report on a multi-million-pound restoration project revealed new satellite imagery showing a big increase in water and vegetation cover in the past three years. The marshes have rebounded to about 37 per cent of their 1970 extent, from about 10 per cent in 2002.

"The evidence of their rapid revival is a positive signal, not only for the environment and the local communities who live there, but must be seen as a contribution to wider peace and security for the Iraqi people," Klaus Toepfer, the executive director of the United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP), said.

Saddam drained much of the Mesopotamian waters between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers by building dams, dykes and canals after the Marsh Arabs supported a Shiite Muslim rebellion following the 1991 Gulf War. Of almost 3,600 sq miles of marshes in 1970, the area had shrunk to 304 sq miles by 2002. As recently as 2001, some experts forecast the marshlands would disappear by 2008.

But restoration efforts since the fall of Saddam have reversed much of the damage, bringing the current marshland area to 1,400 sq miles.

Re-flooding the marshes requires a delicate balance of salt and plant life. "It will be very difficult to restore the entire marshlands," Iraq's minister of water resources, Abdul Latif Jamal Rashid, said.

Calling Saddam's draining of the marshlands "a crime against humanity", he said hoped 80 per cent of the marshlands would be restored in three years.

The UNEP has warned that more detailed field analysis of soil and water quality is need to gauge the exact state of rehabilitation.

"While the re-flooding bodes well for the Iraqi marshes, their recovery will take many years," Mr Toepfer said. "We must continue to monitor the situation carefully and make the necessary long-term investment in marshlands management."

However, Mr Rashid said the project also had other benefits, including a symbolic value for the Iraqi people and the potential to reduce migration to cities by improving agriculture.

"It will help Iraqis return to a traditional way of life," he said. "Even people in the capital, who have never seen the marshlands, are really proud of the project."

Iraqi engineers and tribes began re-flooding parts of the wetlands by cutting gashes in dykes in the euphoria of Saddam's ousting in 2003.

Last year, the UN announced a 6 million project, funded by Japan, to help restore the marshes and provide clean drinking water and sanitation for 100,000 people living there. The programme is providing settlements with water treatment systems and restoring reed beds that act as natural water filters. It is also training 250 Iraqis in wetland management and restoration.

At one time, the wetlands were the largest in the Middle East, filtering polluted water from northern cities and purifying it before it reached the southern rivers and the city of Basra.

But as Shiite Muslims in the region revolted, Saddam ordered thousands killed and built new dams, canals and pipelines to dry up the marshes - the source for fishing, boating and small-scale agriculture that once sustained a population of up to 500,000 people.

Azzam Alwash, the director of non-governmental organisation Eden Again, which is working to restore the marshes, said one of the difficulties facing the project was that dams built since the 1990s in the surrounding region, particularly Turkey, had disrupted the natural water cycles that helped nourish the wetlands.