Iraq's marshes were devastated in the 1980s and 1990s by the Hussein regime's campaign to ditch, dike, drain, and burn them. Unable to pursue their traditional means of livelihood--fishing, herding water buffalo, and hunting--tens of thousands of Marsh Arabs fled to southern Iran.
US scientists undertook a first assessment of the status of the marshes in June 2003. They found massive but uncoordinated reflooding--local farmers had begun blowing up dikes and dams after the collapse of the Hussein regime in April 2003--and noted some reestablishment of native plants. Subsequent monitoring, done in collaboration with Iraqi scientists, estimated overall ecosystem health. Richardson and Hussain report that 39 percent of the former extent of the marshes had been reflooded by September 2005. Despite incomplete data, the researchers found that in many respects the restored marshes they studied are functioning at levels close to those in one marsh that remained undrained. The fast recovery of plant production, overall good water quality, and rapid restoration of most wetland functions seem to indicate that the recovery of ecosystem function is well under way.
Richardson and Hussain are not complacent about the marshes' future, however. The researchers point out that water inflow is unlikely to be sufficient to maintain the encouraging trends in coming years. Fish catches remain poor, which deters many Marsh Arabs from returning to a traditional way of life. Further research is needed--but is not being done, say Richardson and Hussain--to determine how the marshes and agriculture can share water, to identify sites of toxins, and to study insecticide use by local fishermen.
BioScience publishes commentary and peer-reviewed articles covering a wide range of biological fields, with a focus on "Organisms from Molecules to the Environment." The journal has been published since 1964. AIBS is an umbrella organization for professional scientific societies and organizations that are involved with biology. It represents some 200 member societies and organizations with a combined membership of about 250,000.
The complete list of research articles in the June 2006 issue of BioScience is as follows:
Restoring the Garden of Eden: An Ecological Assessment of the Marshes of Iraq. Curtis J. Richardson and Najah A. Hussain
Disentangling Complex Landscapes: New Insights into Arid and Semiarid System Dynamics. Debra P. C. Peters and colleagues
Transgenic Crops and Crop Varietal Diversity: The Case of Maize in Mexico. Daniela Soleri and colleagues.
Predicting Invasion Success: Freshwater Fishes in California as a Model. Peter B. Moyle and Michael P. Marchetti
Ex Situ Plant Conservation and Beyond. Kayri Havens and colleagues
Spatial Heterogeneity and Characteristic Scales of Species-Habitat Relationships. Robert L. Schooley
Journal
BioScience