Stetson Law presents international dialogue on restoring Iraqi marshlands
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Gulfport, Fla. – Stetson University College of Law recently conducted a conference with an Iraqi environmentalist on the efforts to restore Iraqi marshlands destroyed by the Saddam Hussein-led government. The conference is available on Stetson’s Web site at
http://gpiis03.law.stetson.edu/media/on-demand/alwash.asx. The conference also celebrated World Wetlands Day, which commemorates the anniversary of the signing of the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands of International Importance.
Azzam Alwash, director of the Eden Again Project, spoke from Iraq to a group at Stetson’s Gulfport campus. The Eden Again Project is working to restore the Mesopotamian marshlands, which lie in southern Iraq largely between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. The World Wildlife Fund lists the marshlands in the Global 200, which ranks the Earth’s most biologically outstanding habitats.
“This is an environmental tragedy on par with the deforestation of the Amazon,” said Royal C. Gardner, Stetson vice dean and vice chair of the United States National Ramsar Committee and the American Bar Association’s Committee on Water Quality and Wetlands. “We hope this presentation informs people about the environmental and humanitarian atrocities committed by Saddam Hussein and the efforts to reverse them.”
The discussion was an effort to bring more attention this environmental tragedy.
“It was great to be able to hear live from someone in Iraq about the marshland’s current situation,” Gardner said. “I hope this presentation has better informed the community about the plight about the Marsh Arabs and the efforts to restore the Mesopotamian marshlands.”
In the early 1990s, the Iraqi government embarked on a large-scale drainage project, largely in retaliation for the Shia uprising in southern Iraq. The result was the desiccation of the marshlands and the destruction of the culture of the Marsh Arabs. The UN Environment Programme has described the draining as a “major and thoughtless environmental disaster.”
Post date: Feb. 15, 2005
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