Lands covered temporarily or permanently by water (except for lakes, reservoirs, and streams) and located away from coastal areas are called inland wetlands. They include marshes, prairie potholes (depressions carved out by glaciers), swamps (dominated by trees and shrubs), mud flats, flood-plains, bogs (rain-fed, peat-rich areas), wet meadows, and the wet arctic tundra in summer. Some wetlands are huge, others are small.
Despite the ecological importance of year-round and seasonal inland wetlands, many are drained, dredged, filled in, or covered over.
The Tehran Times conducted an interview with Dr. Suzanne Alwash, the writer of “Eden Again: Hope in the Marshes of Iraq” that published first time in 2013.
Suzanne Reynolds Alwash was raised on a small family farm nestled amongst the thickets along Cottonwood Creek in Wilmer, Texas. She graduated from Southern Methodist University with degrees in English and geology and went on to obtain a doctorate in marine geology from the University of Southern California, where she served as chief scientist aboard their research ship R/V Velero IV under the guidance of Dr. Donn Gorsline.
After that, Suzanne worked as an environmental geologist for several decades, cleaning up pollution on land and sea, and consulting on wetlands restoration projects in coastal southern California. Suzanne currently teaches Earth Science at Mount San Antonio College and resides on the edge of the Bolsa Chica wetlands of southern California with her daughters, Hannah and Norah.
Suzanne’s husband, Azzam Alwash was born in 1958 in Kut, Iraq, he spent his youth in the town of Nasriya on the edge of the Mesopotamian Marshlands. In 2001, Azzam and Suzanne founded the Eden Again Project to promote the restoration of the Mesopotamian Marshlands. In 2004 Azzam founded Iraq’s first environmental organization, Nature Iraq, with Suzanne serving as its Senior Technical Advisor.
Nature Iraq has been designated as a national focal point for the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands; accredited by the United Nations Environmental Program, and is in the process of becoming BirdLife International’s designated country partner. Now in its eleventh year, Nature Iraq continues to work throughout Iraq to address its diverse environmental issues.
These wetlands, the birthplace of modern human civilization, are some of the most disturbed natural systems in the world. Throughout human history, rulers have tried to control and obliterate them but they always spring back. Mother Nature is resilient.
Q: Please tell me how the project of Eden again moved from theory to practice?
A: Eden Again began as a project undertaken by Iraqi expatriates living in the U.S., Europe, and Australia who were concerned about the devastation caused by the drying of the marshlands during the 1990s. Knowing that it was not possible for the people who had been driven from the marshlands during this time period to speak for themselves, we tried to organize international public opinion against these actions and to encourage re-flooding of the marshlands. In 2003, some members of this movement returned to Iraq to assist with restoration of these vitally important wetlands. They formed the group Nature Iraq, which has both scientific and environmental activists, and which now forms one of the backbones of the new environmental movement in Iraq.
more:
Categories: Arab World, Iraq, The Muslim Times
We should not forget the work of Baroness Emma Nicholson: quote Other work:
Lady Nicholson is the Executive Chairman of the AMAR International Charitable Foundation which works to recover and to sustain professional services in medicine, public health, education and basic need provision within refugee and other communities living under stress in war zones or in areas of civil disorder and disruption. Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emma_Nicholson,_Baroness_Nicholson_of_Winterbourne
The AMAR Charitable Foundation worked in the Iraqi Marches also. I attended some of her workshops in London, where I also met HRH Prince Charles (in the course of this workshop)