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’Garden of Eden’ Devastated Under Saddam
Edited for brevity.In the purported Garden of Eden, lifeless trees stand amid trash, patches of dry grass and salt-encrusted mud - the remnants of once-lush marshlands. For more than a decade, Saddam Hussein systematically destroyed the vast wetlands of southern Iraq - building dams and canals to drain the swamps, setting fire to the sea of reeds, and arresting and killing residents. Those left behind hope Saddam's fall heralds restoration of the devastated land to the paradise they remember - the one many scholars believe was the biblical Garden of Eden. The marshlands - home to rare species of boar and otter and a spawning ground for Persian Gulf fisheries - once extended 6,000 to 8,000 square miles across an area straddling the Iran-Iraq border. Satellite studies conducted by the U.N. Environment Program show less than 400 square miles remain today. Without urgent action, the U.N. agency warned in March, the entire wetland system could be gone in three to five years. An emergency release of water could stave off further deterioration, it said, but a long-term recovery plan is needed to bring back the scenes some marsh Arabs remember longingly. Posted by: Dar 2003-04-29 |
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