(Washington, DC) — Iraq’s Mesopotamian marshes, often referred to as the original Garden of Eden, were once the largest wetlands in southwest Asia, covering an area nearly twice the size of the original Everglades. However, by the year 2000 less than 10% of the area remained as functioning marshes. In June 2003, two months after the “official end of the war,” an exploratory team entered southern Iraq to assess whether these marshes could be restored and to determine the status of the heavily persecuted indigenous Marsh Arab population and their fishing and agricultural livelihood. No western scientific team had been in the marshes since the late 1970s, and for the past 20 years Iraqi scientists had been forbidden to study the marshes. The May-June issue of the National Wetlands Newsletter (NWN), in an article by Prof. Curtis Richardson of Duke University, looks at the recent restoration of these marshes. “The current rate of recovery is promising, considering that re-flooding occurred only about four years ago,” said NWN editor Rachel Jean-Baptiste. “But as Professor Richardson explains, the Iraqi people still face a number of challenges, such as potentially toxic soils and a lack of water supply.”
The May-June issue also features winners of the 2008 National Wetlands Awards. This year’s Award winners include a great-grandmother from Alabama, ranchowners in Arizona, an activist in California, a professor from the University of Missouri, a conservationist in Florida, and a state water quality supervisor from North Carolina who co-wrote one of the articles in this issue. That article examines how maps of headwater streams used for state and federal planning purposes are often inaccurate, raising serious questions about their use in regulatory applications. Other articles in this issue examine the impact of climate change on wildlife and the recent passage of the Water Resources Development Act.
For three decades, the nationally recognized National Wetlands Newsletter has been a widely read and esteemed journal on wetlands, floodplains, and coastal water resources. The Newsletter, published by the highly respected Environmental Law Institute®, analyzes the latest issues in wetland regulation, policy, science, and management through feature articles written by local, national, and international experts from a variety of perspectives.
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