Mesopotamian Marshes

The Mesopotamian Marshes are a wetland area located in the Middle East. They are situated in Southern Iraq and on the border with Iran. Historically the marshlands used to be the largest wetland ecosystem of Western Eurasia. It is a rare aquatic landscape in the desert, providing habitat for important populations of wildlife. As the name suggests these marshes are located in the larger region which used to be called Mesopotamia, literally meaning in between rivers, in case Mesopotamia in between the Euphrates and the Tigris. Mesopotamia now occupied by modern Iraq, eastern Syria, south-eastern Turkey, and Southwest Iran, is often referred to as the Cradle of Civilization. In the late 4th millennium BC the first literate societies emerged in Mesopotamia and our first cities and complex state bureaucracies were developed here. Due to the geographical location and the ecological factors of the Fertile Crescent, a crescent-shape fertile area running from the basins of the Nile in Egypt, northwards along the Mediterranean coast in Palestine and Israel, and southwards again along the Euphrates and the Tigris (Mesopotamia) towards the Persian Gulf, civilizations were able to develop agricultural and technological programmes. The crucial trigger was the availability of wild edible plant species suitable for domestication. Farming arose early in the Fertile Crescent since the area had an great quantity of wild wheat and pulse species that were nutritious and easy to domesticate.

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The recent history of the Mesopotamian Marshes happened to been a little different to the many fruitful centuries of before. In 1980, 27 years ago Saddam Hussein, at that time president of Iraq invaded Iran in and around the Mesopotamian Marsh, in the borderland of Iran and Iraq at the Persian Gulf. Annexing the oil rich province of Khuzestan as part of Iraqi territory was Saddam’s main goal, but also the acquiring the Shatt al-Arab waterway (Iraq's only port connection to The Persian Gulf).

The aftermath of the Iranian Revolution of 1979 was essential for Saddam’s timing. Iranian leader Ayatollah Khomeini believed that the oppressed Shias in Iraq, Saudi Arabia, and Kuwait could follow the Iranian example and turn against their governments to join a united Islamic republic. Khomeini and Iran's Islamic revolutionaries despised Saddam's secularist regime and called on Iraqis to overthrow Saddam and his regime. At the same time Iran was hardly in any position to attack Iraq, as the Iranian army, a pillar of the Shah's powerbase, had already been seriously weakened and the country in general destabilized. This along with its alienation from the West made it a tempting target to the expansionist Saddam Hussein. What followed was a 8 year long war, fought on both Iraqi and Iranian territory. The war was disastrous for both countries with stalling economic development and disrupting oil exports. But the war is most known for Iraq’s extensive use of chemical weapons and the stiff resistance of the people of Iran, who assembled throughout the country to fight at the front in the trenches of the Mesopotamian Marshes. The war left the borders unchanged and an estimate of a million people killed.

Unfortunately this wasn’t everything the marshes and its people had to suffer. Following the end of the Gulf War in 1991, the Marsh Arabs were an important elements in the uprising against Saddam Hussein’s regime. To end the rebellion, the regime brutally wiped out the marshes and their inhabitants. The Sunni-controlled military raided and burned settlements and killed at least tens of thousands of the Marsh Arabs. The core of the local economy was destroyed by the dikes and dams which were built to lead water straight from Turkey and Iran into the Persian Gulf. Reed beds were burned and poison was introduced to the waters. Hussein didn’t approve with the primitive lifestyle of these inhabitants and he had a bone to pick with this mainly Shiite community, who also had provided shelter for dissidents in their inhospitable environment. Within a year this vast piece of land became inhabitable. Fish, birds and vegetation disappeared and the site soon started to turn into a desert. The Marsh Arabs, who had lived there for thousands of years had to abandon their culture and fled to neighbouring country Iran.

Since Saddam’s regime collapsed, locals have broken open the dikes and dams and the marshes are reflooding again. Marsh Arabs start to return to their country of origin, but it is insecure whether their culture and the marshes will survive. On the ground, some of the re-flooded areas have experienced regrowth of marshland vegetation. Other areas are recovering very slowly, while some reflooded areas remain barren. At the time only 25% of the original biodiversity of the Mesopotamian marshes is left and with Turkey and Iran building dikes and dams for their own agriculture even this remaining area is at risk.

External links

• Eden Again
• Iraq Marshlands resoration Program
• Haur Al Hawizeh
• AMAR Assisting Marsh Arabs and Refugees
• NASA Visible Earth
• Crimes of War
• War in Iraq