Good news from Iraq is hard to come by these days, what with the suicide bombings, the car bombs, the tension between Shi’a and Sunni factions and the almost daily kidnappings. Yet amidst all the doom and gloom there are some positive reports on the unlikely subject of Iraq’s environment. The vast marshlands of southern Iraq, almost drained out of existence by Saddam, are recovering far more quickly than anyone had even dared to hope.

Saddam Hussein did not invent eco-terrorism, but did take it to new levels. In 1991, faced by an international coalition of forces and inevitable defeat, he withdrew from Kuwait but not before torching the oilfields, turning the air black with billowing clouds of thick smoke and unleashing rivers of raw crude into the Arabian Gulf. It had no military purpose. It was neither strategic nor tactical. It was a vast fit of pique. If he could not have those oilfields then no one could, and if he could not have Kuwait then he would leave the country as shattered and impoverished as possible. All this is well documented and few who saw them will forget the sickening images beamed into their living rooms.

Saddam Hussein did not invent eco-terrorism, but did take it to new levels.

But with the end of the first Gulf War, another war against the environment was conducted that received far less coverage. In the south of Iraq, where the Tigris and Euphrates rivers near the ends of their courses, was an area of around 20,000 square kilometers of marshland inhabited continuously for over 5,000 years by an ancient people immortalized by the explorer Wilfred Thesinger in his book The Marsh Arabs. With the West’s support, the Marsh Arabs rebelled against Saddam in the aftermath of that first war and Saddam reacted with his second act of eco-terror. Realizing that he stood little chance of victory in conventional warfare amidst the labyrinthine maze of waterways amongst the vast dense reed beds, he decided to simply drain the marshes. According to a BBC Science report, by the year 2003 only seven percent of the wetlands originally double the area of the Florida Everglades remained. With the water went the entire wetland ecosystem, fishing stocks collapsed and the livelihood and traditional way of life of a whole people was destroyed. Up to 80,000 fled to camps in Iran; it was an environmental catastrophe and a human catastrophe the former is almost always the latter.

At last there is good news: Speaking at the annual meeting of the American Association of the Advancement of Science (AAAS) Dr. Curtis Richardson, co-author of a report on the current status of the marshes, announced that with the destruction of barriers built by Saddam’s henchmen to direct water away from the marshes, 20 percent of the area has now been reflooded with the promise that even more can be restored. And although some areas are heavily salinated, the water quality is better than expected. The result has been the return of “about 60 percent of the wildlife to the marshes” though the report does not make clear whether this is the number of species or absolute numbers. The newly elected Iraqi government has already set up a commission to oversee the recovery of the area and $30 million has been donated from abroad to help in the rehabilitation.

The marshes are home to some very special creatures. One is the western-most population of the Smooth-coated Indian Otter, the subspecies occurring in the marshes Lutra perspicillata maxwelli being found nowhere else. Named after Gavin Maxwell, the author of the classic otter novel Ring of Bright Water, Maxwell kept one of these animals as a pet, describing it as being “easily tamed and [it] enjoyed lying on its back juggling with small objects between its paws.” Living with the otter was not always easy as it “exhibited an intense inquisitiveness and would ransack a room in the course of ceaseless play and investigation.” Even before the drainage of the marshes very little was known about this lithe, supremely aquatic relative of the weasel, and most of what we know about its behavior comes from observations of Maxwell’s animal.

Two birds, the Iraq Babbler and the Basra Reed Warbler, are virtually confined to the marshes as breeding species, the former just extending into Iran. The Iraq Babbler is around 22cm long, rather uniform darkish brown with narrow dark streaks on the upper-parts and paler more uniform underparts. The bill is rather slender and slightly downcurved. Its habitat range spreads into cultivated areas, palm groves and scrub so that in M. I. Evans’ Important Bird Areas in the Middle East it was reported as being a “common resident” in 1995. How it has fared since is unknown. The Basra Reed Warbler is of more concern, restricted as a breeding species to the reed beds and by 1998 was reported as “now threatened by the drainage of the Iraq marshes.” It is some 15cm long, basically brownish with very pale underparts, a pale eyestripe and a rather long, slender straight bill. There have been unconfirmed records from Egypt but these should be treated with great care as it is very similar to the Great Reed Warbler (a larger bird with a stouter bill found here on migration in Spring and Fall) and the Clamorous Reed Warbler (a common resident of Egypt’s Nile Valley and Delta). Its loud ‘chak’ is a familiar sound from any bed of phragmites reeds.

The status of the African Darter is uncertain; indeed it was uncertain even prior to Saddam’s onslaughts. With the population of the African Darter in Turkey almost certainly extinct, the Iraqi darters would be the northern and easternmost of the species. Also known as the Snakebird, it has a very long, sinuous neck and slender, pointed bill with which it spears fish. Otherwise it is cormorant-like in form with a long graduated tail, rufous below, dark-streaked white above with a bold white stripe down the side of the neck. The African Darter can be difficult to observe as it swims with its body submerged and only the head and neck visible, giving it an almost snake-like appearance. Its fish prey is impaled underwater. There have been several recent unconfirmed records of the species along the southern Nile Valley, and accepted records from 1950 and 1985 and more recent unconfirmed reports. It was familiar to the ancients as there is an unmistakable carving of a darter photographed in Houlihan’s The Birds of Ancient Egypt. The representation is in the Festival Hall of Tuthmosis III. It appears in a section of a frieze known as ‘The Botanical Garden’ with other exotic species, so it may not have occurred in Ancient Egypt as a wild bird. Older darters have been found near Aswan and in Fayoum, and as the habitat then would have been suitable, the African Darter may have survived here into historical times.

The travails of Iraq’s southern marshlands are by no means over, but their internal threat is at least gone. The biggest threat to these wetlands now lies with Turkey and Iran, who have control over much of the headwaters of the Tigris and Euphrates. While the survival of the Basra Reed Warbler et al may seem of minimal significance compared to all the troubles faced daily by Iraq’s human population, their continued presence is indicative of hope for the return of a healthy ecosystem for man and beast alike. A habitat fit for the ‘natural’ denizens of the marshes will be fit for the Marsh Arabs too. Whether they will ever be able to return to their traditions and customs, or whether the assault on their way of life has been terminal is simply too early to say but there is a glimmer of hope. et