MOSAIC: Iraqi Marshlands
A multi-million dollar project to restore the environment and provide clean drinking water in the Marshlands of Mesopotamia is being taken up by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP).
The project, funded by the Government of Japan, will support the sustainable development and restoration of the Iraqi Marshlands through implementation of environmentally sound technologies. Drinking water and sanitation systems will be installed in key communities and pilot wetlands restoration undertaken for the benefit of people and wildlife.
The Marshlands, considered by some to be the location of the Biblical Garden of Eden, were massively damaged in the late 20th century, partly as a result of new dams on the Tigris and Euphrates river systems and partly as a result of massive drainage operations by the previous Iraqi regime.
In 2001, UNEP alerted the world to their plight when it released satellite images showing that 90 per cent of these fabled wetlands, home to rare and unique species like the Sacred Ibis and African darter, and a spawning ground for Gulf fisheries, had been lost.
Further studies, released in 2003, showed that an additional three per cent or 325 square kilometres had gone. Experts feared that the entire wetlands, home to a 5,000 year-old civilization who are the heirs of the Babylonians and Sumerians, could disappear entirely by 2008.
With the collapse of the former Iraqi regime in mid-2003, local residents began opening floodgates and breaching embankments in order to bring water back into the marshlands. Satellite images indicate that, by April this year, around a fifth or some 3,000 square kilometres of the marshes had been re-flooded.
The challenge now is to restore the environment and provide clean water and sanitation services to the up to 85,000 people living there.
A recent survey found that most of the Marsh Arabs are collecting water directly from the marshlands. Many of the settlements in the area lack basic sanitation services with waste water draining into the street or nearest stream. As a result, water-borne diseases have become commonplace.
The $11 million project, approved in the framework of the UN Iraq Trust Fund, will initially target around a dozen settlements with small-scale water treatment systems some of which are likely to be solar powered.
Reed beds and other marshland habitats that act as natural, water-filtration systems, will be restored which will benefit not only local residents but also provide new habitats for birds and other key wildlife. Other activities will include the setting up of a Marshland Information Network, an Internet-based system that will allow those with an interest in the region to share their ideas and strategies.
Satellite images, documenting how restoration work is faring and chronicling changes in vegetation and the progress of re-flooding, will be posted on the site almost daily. Some of the funds will support public awareness schemes, both locally and internationally.
The project will also help train the Iraqi authorities, both at national government and local levels. It will train experts in wetland management and restoration, remote sensing analysis and community-based resource management.
Several other governments and non-governmental organizations are involved in the Iraqi Marshlands. The UNEP project aims to strengthen the coordination of these various efforts to ensure maximum benefit for the people and wildlife there.
The Marshlands of Mesopotamia constitute the largest wetland ecosystem in the Middle East and Western Eurasia. They are also culturally significant. Half the world’s wetlands have been lost in the past 100 years. The lessons learnt during this project will provide important clues on how to resuscitate other lost and degraded wetlands elsewhere on the globe. — Samina Iqbal
Eat less, live long
SCIENTISTS have known for decades that controlled famine can extend the life span of mammals by as much as 50 per cent and that those long lived lean mammals are protected from diseases of old age. This was stated in a recent issue of Nature.
Researchers believe that they have found the key to a long, lean, healthy life in a single protein that controls whether a mammal stores fat or sheds it.
A mammal generally burns the protein and carbohydrate in its food immediately, but stores fat in special cells called white adipose tissue or WAT. When it reduces its caloric intake, the WAT stops storing fat and begins releasing it for metabolism. The ability of fat cells to sense famine for a short time and release the fat, is regulated by a gene. Also the Sirt 1 protein activates calorie restriction or fat mobilization in WAT. It is speculated that this applies to people also. If it does it would not only give a long life but also help prevent diseases of aging like cancer, diabetes and heart disease.
Dieting is not easy and a very low calorie diet would have unpleasant side effects.
If a drug is made which would bind to Sirt 1 and fool the body to release fat, This would give the benefits of calorie restriction without side effects. But apparently vigorous exercise would be required. This drug could be the fountain of youth.
It would be a day when people would eat their favourite foods, stay thin and live to be 120 without getting age-induced diabetes or cancer. — Dr Fatema Jawad
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