Water buffalo lose their habitat, the desert is advancing and farmers flee to the city. Iraqis are experiencing a brutal summer, with temperatures soaring to 50 degrees for months. Large parts of the ‘Garden of Eden’, once a swamp with unique vegetation and fauna in southern Iraq, are drying up due to global warming and lack of rainfall.
“The swamps guarantee our livelihood,” 35-year-old farmer Hashem Gassed told AFP news agency. “We used to fish here, and our cattle could drink here.” Now Gassed has to walk 10 kilometers to feed and cool his water buffalo. Of the approximately thirty buffalo that the family had, he has five left. The others have been sold to survive.
Satellite images, studied by the Dutch peace organization Pax, to show that the water level has dropped in 41 percent of the wetland area. At least 46 percent of the rivers have dried up to the bottom, a catastrophe for the local population. Channels and streams have turned into a lunar landscape. A way of life is at stake: According to genetic research, the population in the swamps goes back to Mesopotamia, which can be heard in the language. Arabic is interspersed with words that descend from Sumerian, the oldest language in the world. The swamps have been designated a world heritage site by the UN organization Unesco, but in practice this title has yielded little.
Doomed
Sulman Khairalla (30), co-founder of environmental organization Humat Dijlah (‘Association for the Protection of the Tigris’), thinks the area is doomed. ‘The largest lake has dried up. Hundreds of buffalo got stuck in the mud and died.’ There are fears for the future of otters and migratory birds such as the native bassrake kite.
Thousands of families have packed their things. “It’s a matter of human rights,” Khairalla says over the phone. “Their whole lives depend on the swamps. We have to take care of them. But now that they’re drifting, they’re treated like second-class citizens.’ The administration of the nearest large city, Basra, said on Wednesday that the families are not welcome because the public facilities (electricity and water) would not be designed for so many people.
The Iraqi government participated in the 2015 UN climate conference in Paris, but then six years of political haggling followed before Baghdad ratified the treaty. On average, the temperature in Iraq is 0.7 degrees higher than a hundred years ago.
sandstorms
An additional problem is a growing number of sandstorms. Since April, the country has had at least ten to choose from – a multiple of previous years. Air traffic and public life are constantly coming to a standstill and hospitals are overflowing with patients with bronchial asthma and respiratory problems. The United Nations calls Iraq the fifth most vulnerable country in the world in terms of climate change.
Other factors also play a role: the water level in the Tigris and Euphrates, the rivers that feed the swamps, is exceptionally low because Iran and Turkey hold back the water upstream with dams. Baghdad threatens to take Tehran to the International Court of Justice and cites the severing of economic ties, but that is considered an empty slogan: the Iraqi economy relies heavily on the same countries.
An average Iraqi consumes an above-average amount of water (dust on the street is usually washed away with a garden hose), with the result that the groundwater level in the Kurdish city of Erbil, for example, has risen over the past twenty years. 500 meters has fallen. Kurds in the region drill their own wells, but that regularly produces unsanitary water that has come into contact with the (leaking) sewage system. In June, the city of Suleimaniya declared a state of emergency after 56 people contracted cholera. Residents were urged to buy bottled water.
Sticking plasters
If nothing changes, a government report warns, the Tigris and Euphrates will be completely dry by 2040. Khraisalla sees that the government mainly sticks plasters. ‘Water is taken from the Mosul reservoir and brought to the cities in trucks. The word ‘sustainability’ is often mentioned, but in practice it is an empty shell.’
According to him, the authorities are particularly wary of protests in cities such as Basra and want to be ahead of them with short-term solutions. As in previous summers, dozens of citizens in Basra recently took to the streets. Power shortages were the reason this time, after an overloaded power plant failed.
The oldest inhabitants of the swamps remember that dictator Saddam Hussein drained the area in revenge for a popular uprising. After its fall in 2003, Iraqis breached the dams, and some of the water returned. But this time the enemy is of a completely different order. “We don’t know where to go now,” said farmer Gassed. “Our lives here are over. We’ve been protesting for over two years, but nobody listens to us.’