(Note: This is a *long* message.  If you are interested in participating in
the course for college credit, please contact Stuart Leiderman at
[log in to unmask])

Announcing Summer On-Line (Computer-Based) Course
"Iraq: Restoring the Marshlands"
Begins July 6

Worldwide registration now open.
Scholarships may be available to overseas students.
Contact: Stuart Leiderman, [log in to unmask] 603.776.0055

- - - - - - -

ENV195 [60432]  "IRAQ: RESTORING THE MARSHLANDS"
Instructor:  Stuart Leiderman   603.776.0055  [log in to unmask]

Second Summer Session, 2004, begins July 6
Continuing Education, University of Vermont, Burlington
800. 639-3210   http://www.uvm.edu/~learn/

- - - - - - -

WEEK I:  THE PAST: 3000 B.C. - 2002

Preconceptions; Speeches to Parliament
Human and Environmental Dimensions 1 & 2
Demise?

WEEK II:  THE PRESENT: 2003-2004

Ten Years' War, Five Years More
Re-entry, Reassessment;  Early Revival?
Work to Do;  Whose Marshes?

WEEK III: CAST OF CHARACTERS

United States; Iraq; United Nations
Non-governmental Organizations and Academia
Business and Industry

WEEK IV: RESTORATION TOOLBOX

Conservation; Ecological Restoration
Wetlands; Wetlands Restoration
Wadi Gaza Nature Park

WEEK V: THE FLORIDA CONNECTION

The Everglades 1 & 2
Marshlands Congressional Hearing
Ghosts of the Marshes; Wrap-up and Evaluation

- - - - - - -

INTRODUCTION:

Throughout the 1990's, the regime of Saddam Hussein committed genocide and
ecocide  against the people and environment of Mesopotamia -- the vast
marshlands between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers in Southern Iraq.  The
government did this through a secret "Plan for the Marshes" to drain away
its life-giving water and attack, kill and scatter its half-million
inhabitants who were predominantly Shi'a Moslem and perceived to be a
threat to the ruling Ba'athists who were predominantly Sunni Moslem.
Today, the former regime is gone and the country is occupied by other
forces, but Mesopotamia is still a depopulated wasteland.

A new plan for the marshes is urgently needed to restore the environment
and permit the return of refugees and others who might settle there and
resume their distinctive way of life.  For restoration models, the
degraded Florida Everglades is comparable in size, but that project has
become extremely politicized and there is little progress to report
despite the promise of commitment of billions of dollars. And while the
Everglades is principally a wildland -- birds, reptiles, panthers, grass,
reeds and trees -- Mesopotamia is a homeland whose pastoral and fishing
communities, until recently, provided large amounts of food and fiber for
all of Iraq.

The task of restoring Mesopotamia is just beginning.  It will require the
confidence, courage, willingness, resources and know-how of teachers,
students, scientists, engineers, doctors, humanitarians,
environmentalists, journalists and businesses from all over the world.
Already, major participants include Iraq's Ministries of Environment and
Water Resources, the University of Basrah, the U.S. Agency for
International Development [USAID], the U.N. Environment Programme [UNEP],
Iraq Foundation, AMAR Appeal, al-Khoei Foundation, Bird Life
International, Wetlands International and the International Union for the
Conservation of Nature.  For success, their work must be assertive,
coordinated, ethical and cost-effective.  It must include native Iraqis,
especially marsh refugees, and preserve the continuity of indigenous marsh
culture.  It must be able to resist the counter pressures of Big Oil,
agribusiness, urbanization and Western-style development.  In the
instructor's opinion, the job is too big for experts alone.  Nevertheless,
there is a need for a "Jacques Cousteau (or Jane Goodall) of the Marshes"
who could come from anywhere on Earth -- even from a college campus -- to
champion the cause of the marshlands, the surviving refugees and a new
generation of a half-million Mesopotamians.

The instructor has studied, written, lectured and organized programs about
Southern Iraq for more than ten years.  He has extensive files and
contacts accessible to students, and is working on the creation of a
Center for Southern Iraq Restoration Studies at Basrah University, located
between the marshes and the Persian Gulf in Iraq's second-largest city.
He believes the greatest possible participation is necessary for restoring
and protecting Mesopotamia's marshlands.  A recent article is posted on
the web at
<http://www.carnegiecouncil.org/viewMedia.php/prmTemplateID/8/prmID/4458>


THE PLAN OF THE COURSE

For the summer session, the course is divided into five weekly sections
which, in turn, are divided into daily sections.  Each week, the
instructor will introduce the new section and give a research and writing
assignment (5 to 10 pages double-spaced will be adequate) for students to
complete and e-mail to the instructor by the beginning of the following
week.

Each day, the instructor will pose a question for online discussion, based
on a variety of assigned articles, speeches, reports, interviews and other
documentation that pertain to the plight and of the marshlands of Southern
Iraq and the efforts to restore them.  Students are expected to join the
online discussion at least twice a day and make reference to the readings
and other information they gather.  The instructor will join the
discussion to clarify or add points of view, probe the class on what they
are learning and suggest how their research may lead to direct involvement
in the actual ongoing restoration effort.


GOALS

Students will learn about and appreciate the plight of the marshlands and
become familiar with the needs and plans for their restoration.  They will
become aware of the diversity of individuals and organizations needed to
accomplish region-sized ecological restoration, refugee resettlement and
wetlands management.


OBJECTIVES

Working online with their classmates and the instructor, students will
organize what they discover and learn into a novel website that a) follows
the progress of ecological restoration in Southern Iraq, b) recognizes the
environmental, educational, scientific, cultural, political, economic and
organizing obstacles to overcome and c) develops opportunities for
meaningful involvement in the restoration effort.


HYPOTHESIS

An online course of study can offer students a way to learn about the
marshlands of Southern Iraq and develop opportunities to become involved
in the restoration effort as, for example, an "online intern" for an
organization, agency, community or individual directly  involved in some
aspect of the restoration effort.

- - - - - - - -

WEEK I.  THE PAST: 3000 B.C. - 2002

While it might seem strange to compress the past five thousand years into
a single era, it could be argued that this particular kind of catastrophe
in Southern Iraq -- strangling by thirst -- is something that has never
happened before.  Indeed, the multiple crossroads of this crisis may never
have happened in such a combination -- Sunni versus Shi'a, oil versus
water, rural versus urban, tribal versus corporate, irrigated versus
dryland agriculture, vengeful engineering versus sustainable stewardship,
and a host of other antagonisms.  Scientists and refugees alike have
witnessed the almost-complete disappearance of this vast watery region;
there does not seem to be much time for Iraqis and the world-at-large to
develop and cooperate on a strategy for its rescue and rejuvenation.

Research/Writing Assignment:

Create a general test of knowledge about the marshlands of Southern Iraq,
including the crisis of the past 10-15 years.  It should have a minimum of
10 questions and one map.  Give the test to at least 20 people from a
variety of backgrounds and experiences, e.g. student, office worker,
scientist, retired person, soldier, clerk, etc.  Prepare an answer sheet,
including your sources of information, and give a copy to everyone who
takes the test.  Then, tabulate, analyze and discuss the answers and the
combined results.  E-mail to the instructor by the beginning of next week.

Day 1: Preconceptions

In times of crisis, one's preconceptions can be incendiary -- they can act
as a fire-retardant or as an arsonist's accelerant.  For many years,
especially during the crisis in the marshlands of Southern Iraq following
the Persian Gulf War, numerous writers, journalists, politicians and
others have referred to this region in ancient and Biblical terms such as
"Babylonia" and "Garden of Eden" and its most recent refugees as "exiles
from Eden".  These terms invariably trigger certain kind of preconceptions
in the minds of readers and listeners around the world, much the same way
that the term "Holy Land" triggers preconceptions about Israel and the
Palestinian Territory.  Preconceptions, however, can obscure reality and
one's ability to think critically and solve problems; they can also
imprison entire regions and cultures to a time in the past such that
neither the land or the people could survive in today's world.  Southern
Iraq and the Holy Land are not the only cases that come to mind; another
is Haiti, whose triumphant slave revolt against France in 1804 seems to
have left the new country chained to two additional centuries of
home-grown despots  one wonders about the preconcept "once a slave, always
a slave".

Looking back thousands of years from a vantage point in the Middle East,
it could be said that the Garden of Eden was the ancient core of the
Fertile Crescent, a band of early civilization that spread northwesterly
along the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers, then westward to the Mediterranean
and then southward along the eastern seacoast toward the Sinai Peninsula.
But this once-fertile core was made into a barren wasteland, almost
completely deprived of water, extensively laced with toxic chemicals, land
mines and depleted uranium.  Thousands of feet below this troubled land
are amounts of petroleum of gigantic, Biblical proportion.  What are the
operative preconceptions here?  Whose will prevail?

For Online Discussion:

Before you go to the references, briefly present your preconceptions of
the land and people of the marshlands of Southern Iraq.  Speak from
personal experience and from what you've already learned from school,
travels, friends, news reports, etc.  Then, go to the references and:

a) try to come to terms with the power of preconceptions, for example, the
ones that attract or repel people from certain places, controversies and
problems, or others that obscure, exaggerate, twist or fantasize about the
real world,

b) see whether the references about the marshlands reinforce or refute
your preconceptions about
that place and those people, and

c) think about how preconceptions might affect the fate of the marshes.

References:

[audio] Southern California Public Radio. 2003. AirTalk: Restoring the
"Garden of Eden" in Iraq. KPCC89.3FM. August 12.
http://www.kpcc.org/programs/airtalk/listings/2003/08/airtalk_20030811.shtml

Preconceptions Meet Reality 2003-2004
http://hyl.edu.hel.fi/~preconception/index.html,
http://hyl.edu.hel.fi/~preconception/sivut03/info.html

Poems About Preconceptions
http://www.fantasticpoems.com/Poetry-Trails/About-Preconceptions.html

Poems of Lewis Carroll
http://www.theotherpages.org/poems/carrol01.html

laputanlogic.com. 2004. Marsh Arabs. January 27.
http://www.laputanlogic.com/story/2004/01/24-0001.html

laputanlogic.com. 2004. Marsh Arabs (Part II). January 28.
http://www.laputanlogic.com/story/2004/01/28-0002.html

Pearce, Fred. 2003.  Saddam Drained the Garden of Eden: Reclaiming an
Iraqi Eden: Saddam Hussein turned a thriving marshland into a poisoned
desert.  Can it be restored? Boston Globe. April 1. reprinted in
FreeRepublic.com. http://209.157.64.200/focus/f-news/887208/posts

Martin, Glen. 2003. A dream of restoring Iraq's great marshes: Wetlands
destroyed by Hussein could thrive again. San Francisco Chronicle. April
18. reprinted in FreeRepublic.com.
http://209.157.64.200.focus/f-news/896030/posts

Day 2: Speeches to Parliament

Baroness Emma Nicholson of Winterbourne was a member of the British
Parliament during the early 1990's -- now member of the European
Parliament -- and one of the first Western government  representatives to
visit Southern Iraq and nearby Iranian refugee camps after the end of the
Persian Gulf War in 1991.  She gathered stories of horrific persecution by
Saddam Hussein's regime on the people of the marsh region, and used the
word "genocide" to denote the Iraqi government's intention eliminate this
historically-indigenous culture of approximately half a million.  Her
oratorical and writing skills and field organizing experience has earned
her a place at the table of those who are currently most involved in the
marsh region.

To provide humanitarian relief to tens of thousands of refugees and
displaced Iraqis, Nicholson established a charitable organization named
"AMAR Appeal" whose acronym represents "Assisting Marsh Arab Refugees".
AMAR is still in existence and its staff was one of the first among
non-governmental organizations to return to Southern Iraq after last
year's re-invasion.  AMAR has an annual budget of approximately $3 million
and offers refugees and returning Marsh Inhabitants a variety of medical
and social services.

For Online Discussion:

Read Nicholson's speeches silently.  What effects do her words have on
you?  Then read the speeches out loud, preferably to someone else.  Is
there a difference?  How does Nicholson combine facts with emotion?  Do
you believe her?  Are you inspired?  Have you heard someone recently give
a speech about a humanitarian or environmental subject?  Do you think you
could write and give one?  What would the subject be?

References:

Emma Nicholson, MEP [website]: http://www.emmanicholson.org.uk/
Speeches of Baroness Emma Nicholson, Member of Parliament
http://www.parliament.the-stationery-office.co.uk/pa/cm199192/cmhansrd/1991-12-12/Debate-17.html
http://www.parliament.the-stationery-office.co.uk/pa/cm199192/cmhansrd/1991-12-12/Debate-18.html
http://www.parliament.the-stationery-office.co.uk/pa/cm199293/cmhansrd/1992-09-25/Debate-4.html
http://www.parliament.the-stationery-office.co.uk/pa/cm199293/cmhansrd/1993-04-02/Debate-1.html
http://www.parliament.the-stationery-office.co.uk/pa/cm199394/cmhansrd/1993-11-19/Debate-4.html
http://www.parliament.the-stationery-office.co.uk/pa/ld199798/ldhansrd/vo971202/text/71202-11.htm
photos:
http://www.clearharmony.net/news_images/2001-9-25-2001-9-24-lon-brsl_1.jpg
http://www.nato.int/pictures/2000/000515/b000515b.jpg

Days  3 and 4: Human and Environmental Dimensions

Three years after the end of the Persian Gulf War, AMAR Appeal
commissioned British professor and scientist Edward Maltby to prepare "An
Environmental and Ecological Study of the Marshlands of Mesopotamia"
[1994] that reviewed in great detail the geological and hydrological
history of the region, the flora and fauna of the ecosystem, the
livelihoods they supported, the recent engineering works and their
consequences that severely distorted and depleted the marshlands, and
several scenarios that could affect the fate of the marshes for the better
or for the worse.  That 200+ page, single-spaced report was relatively
technical and had a limited circulation among people who were deeply
concerned about the marshlands and who wanted to have a compendium of
sorts upon which to build their own projects leading towards restoration.

In 2000 and 2001,  AMAR hosted two major conferences on the subject of the
marshlands, inviting several specialists to present papers that then
became a book for the more general reading public, "The Iraqi Marshlands:
A Human and Environmental Study".  It was co-sponsored by IUCN
[International Union for the Conservation of Nature, also known as The
World Conservation Union], ODA [Overseas Development Administration, UK],
The Red Crescent Society of Kuwait, The US Department of State and WWF
[World Wildlife Fund International, Geneva].  There are 16 major papers
plus a report based on a survey questionnaire covering 400 marsh refugee
households in two Iranian camps.

For Online Discussion:

Skim the book once for a general feeling of the intensity of the crisis
that existed in Southern Iraq after ten years of extremely aggressive
humanitarian and environmental persecution.  Discuss what information
seems to match or reinforce your preconceptions of the situation there and
what seems to refute them or add significantly to your understanding of
what life was like at that time, approximately 10-11 years from 1991-2001.
Then, go back through the book and pick out ten categories or elements of
natural and human life in the region that will have to be restored or
repaired, for example, the availability of water, reeds, certain animal
species, housing, boats, etc.  Discuss how easy or difficult you think it
would be to bring things back to "normal."  Don't wallow in the tragedy of
it all; instead, start thinking positively.

References:

Sierra Club Legal Defense Fund. 1994. The 1994 Draft Declaration of
Principles on Human Rights and the Environment.
http://fletcher.tufts.edu/multi/www/1994-decl.html

AMAR: The Iraqi Marshlands: A Human and Environmental Study
http://www.amarappeal.com/documents/TheIraqiMarshlands.pdf

Day 5: Demise?

The United Nations Environment Programme's [UNEP] report, "The
Mesopotamian Marshlands: Demise of an Ecosystem" appeared in 2001, ten
years into Iraq's ecocide and genocide against Southern Iraq.  It is both
startling and timid  startling because of the way it uses Earth satellite
imagery to portray the disappearance of the wetlands, but timid in the way
it skirts the culpability of the Iraq government and puts the situation in
a passive kind of language, "The demise of the Mesopotamian marshlands is
part and parcel of an underlying hydrologic catchment problem: growing
demands on the dwindling water supplies of the Tigris-Euphrates basin."
[p. viiii]

The writing and compilation of imagery comparing views taken over
approximately 30 years was done by Hassan Partow, a relatively young Iraqi
scientist working with UNEP's mapping unit in Geneva, Switzerland.  He has
continued to be of extraordinary help to the circle of individuals,
organizations and agencies beginning to cooperate on restoration efforts.
Most recent, Partow produced a set of images showing the return of surface
water to scattered portions of the marshlands during the middle of 2003,
after Iraqi armed forces abandoned the network of dams and canals that
criss-cross the South.  In some cases, Iraqi government irrigation
officials themselves open the water gates after troops fled northward.

For Online Discussion:

Read the UNEP report and discuss the parts that are most easily-understood
and that make the most lasting impression on you.  Then discuss the parts
that are the most difficult to understand and what might be done to make
them more easily understood.  What parts do you believe will be most
critical to keep in mind for a conceivable restoration projects? [example
hint  on page 16, "Water-buffalos play a pivotal role in Marsh Arab
existence, whose standing in their social and economic life has been
compared with that of the camel to Bedouin Arabs."]

References:

Partow, Hassan. 2001. The Mesopotamian Marshlands: Demise of an Ecosystem.
United Nations Environment Program, Geneva, Switzerland.
http://www.grid.unep.ch/activities/sustainable/tigris/marshlands/mesopotamia.pdf

U.S. Geological Survey. 2001. Earthshots: Satellite Images of
Environmental Change: Iraq-Kuwait: 1972, 1990, 1991, 1997.
<http://edc.usgs.gov/earthshots/slow/Iraq/Iraq>,
<http://edc.usgs.gov/earthshots/slow/Iraq/Iraqtext>

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WEEK II.  THE PRESENT: 2003 - 2004

In 2003, the crisis of the marshes may have reached a kind of breakpoint.
The results of Iraqi government attacks on the region -- bombing, burning,
extensive drainage and desiccation -- had been photographically documented
from space for ten years.  Then, in 2001, the evidence and implications
were officially recognized by the United Nations Environment Programme as
an ecological catastrophe of global significance.  For the next two years,
this high-altitude alarm sunk into world consciousness while Iraq
continued to prohibit observers into the marshes.  A few humanitarian aid
workers were helping several thousand marsh refugees in Iranian relief
camps.  Some Americans had gone illegally to Iraq and were working in the
vicinity of Basrah; they reported extensively on the disastrous social and
health effects of international trade sanctions against the Saddam Hussein
regime.  Instead of bringing down the tyrant, the sanctions were killing
thousands of innocent people through poverty, malnutrition and illness.
In America, members of the Iraq Foundation persuaded the Department of
State to include their  concern for the marshes in the government's broad
support to Iraqi opposition groups.  The Department gave the Foundation
approximately $200,000 to assemble a scientific panel to consider the
feasibility of marsh restoration.  That report was released early in 2003.
Although the recommendations were lukewarm, the report triggered a pulse
of media coverage about the plight of the marshes that preceded the
re-invasion of Iraq and lasted for several months.

Research/Writing Assignment:

>From a minimum of 30 references about the plight of the marshes published
in 2004, choose three distinctive themes contained in them, and assess the
relative strengths and weaknesses of the information relative to what you
might need for a restoration project.  For example, if you choose the
marsh refugees as one theme, were they just talked about as people who
used to live there, or were they also identified as people who deserve to
have a stake in restoring the marshes?  Were they described as people who
came from the general marsh region, or were they identified as members of
specific tribes from particular locations who might have valuable
knowledge about how to restore those locations?  Said another way, for
each theme, what critical information was provided and what was missing?
Does this give you some hints why people can be relatively well-informed
about urgent environmental and humanitarian crises but at the same time
not be able to do much about solving them?

Day 1: Ten Years' War, Five Years More

Early in 2003, writers and broadcasters seem to have re-discovered the
alarming evidence about the marshes disclosed by the United Nations
Environment Program.  A sense of urgency is expressed because of the
possible irreversible deterioration taking place.  For news purposes, the
stories seem to be caught between two themes: one that is already
memorializing the marshes and the people who used to live there, and one
that detects a certain kind of idealism that the region could indeed be
restored.  In an incidental way, these themes tie into the controversy of
continued searches for weapons of mass destruction.  If the search doesn't
continue, and inspection teams leave Iraq altogether, there will also be
no new on-the-ground information about the plight of the marshes.  This
means deterioration there will continue.  On the other hand, if
inspections continue and the U.S. and allies actually re-invade Iraq after
being away for more than ten years, there is a possibility that the
marshes will receive the attention they need to recover.  Knowing what we
do now, namely that plans for re-invading Iraq were developing quite some
time before 2003, it is conceivable that this intention was signaled to
the Iraq Foundation in discussions about the marsh restoration feasibility
study.  In effect, the money would also be a way to acquire the support of
Iraq-related environmentalists when the U.S. went back to war.

For Online Discussion:

In news writing and broadcasting, the language used is critical to framing
the subject and influencing the readers', listeners' and viewers'
perception and motivation.  How does the choice of adjectives about
people, places and things in the story of the marshes affect your
impressions and understanding of what happened there, what is happening
now and what could happen in the future?  Assuming you are searching for
specific clues that might be useful in the restoration process, what
specific ones seem to help or hinder your effort?

References:

[audio] National Public Radio. 2004. New hope for Iraq's Marsh Arabs.
Morning Edition. January 21.
http://www.npr.org/rundowns/rundown.php?prgId=3&prgDate=21-Jan-2004

McCarthy, Rory. 2003. Saddam's troublesome marsh dwellers left high and
dry by drainage. The Guardian. January 6.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,3604,869151,00.html

Spindle, Bill. 2003. Exile wants to return life to marsh Hussein drained:
Hussein reduced "Garden of Eden" on Tigris and Euphrates to salt-encrusted
wasteland.  Wall Street Journal, January 27. reprinted at
http://www.iraqfoundation.org/projects/edenagain/2003/ajan/27_exile.html

McGeough, Paul. 2003. The last of the Marsh Arabs. theage.com.au. February
27. http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2003/02/26/1046064103640.html

United Nations Environment Programme. 2003. "Garden of Eden" in Southern
Iraq likely to disappear completely in five years unless urgent action
taken. March 22.
http://www.grid.unep.ch/activities/sustainable/tigris/_download/alhawizeh1.pdf

Hirsch, Tim. 2003. Iraq marshes vanishing. BBC News. March 22.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/2875311.stm

United States Embassy Islamabad. 2003. Text: UNEP calls for action plan to
save Iraqi marshlands: Tells World Water Forum marshlands disappearing at
alarming rate. March 25
http://usembassy.state.gov/posts/pk1/wwwh03032511.html

Day 2: Re-entry, Reassessment

By spring of 2003, the war had started, and American and British troops
were fighting in the southern part of the country over dry deserts that
were once fertile marshlands.  News articles began to speculate on the
opportunity to restore the region before ecological deterioration became
permanent.  There was a feeling of a race against time.  United Nations
agencies began to weigh in on the subject, as well as American government
officials and representatives of international non-governmental
organizations.  Writers continued to emphasize the region's ancient
history and the debt of Western civilization to the culture developed by
ancestors of today's people of the marshes.

For Online Discussion:

How effective do you think it is to talk about the marshes in Biblical
terms such as "Eden" and "Cradle of Civilization"?  To whom does this
appeal?  Americans?  Europeans? Africans? Asians?  Does it recall how
stories of the plundering of the Holy Land by Turks, Arabs, Egyptians and
Persians plunder the Holy Land by Turks, Arabs, Egyptians and Persians
helped generate the waves of Crusades during the Middle Ages?  What other
examples come to mind?

References:

Spotts, Peter N. 2003. Watering Eden. Christian Science
Monitor/csmonitor.com. March 27.
http://www.csmonitor.com/2003/0327/p14s01-sten.html

Anonymous. 2003. The environment: The spoils of war. The
Economist/Economist.com. March 27.
http://www.economist.com/displayStory.cfm?Story_ID=1666489

Whipple, Dan. 2003. Blue Planet: Paradise lost  again. March 29.
http://www.upi.com/view.cfm?StoryID=20030327-065227-6183r

Lasso. Maria Ampara. 2003. Eden in the line of fire. Inter Press Service.
April 3. http://ipsnews.net/interna.asp?idnews=17293

Baragona, Steve. 2003. Will Mesopotamian marshes completely disappear?
Voice of America/VOAnews.com. April 4.
http://www.voanews.com/article.cfm?objectid=63FEDC91-213C-4D9E-BA3AB9BEFE21CD55&title+Will%20Mesopotamian%20Marshes%20Disappear%3F&db=current

Anonymous. 2003. Mythical Garden of Eden now a wasteland. Sify News. April
12. http://headlines.sify.com/2070news5.html

Holtey, Athena. 2003. "Almost gone...but not forgotten: An Iraqi kayaker
remembers his homeland as a paddler's paradise." TopKayaker.Net. April 12.
http://www.sit-on-topkayaking.com/Articles/NatureIssues/Iraq.html

United Nations Environment Programme. 2003. Desk Study on the Environment
in Iraq. April 24. http://postconflict.unep.ch/publications/Iraq_DS.pdf

Day 3: Early Revival?

By late spring, the American military had passed over the former
marshlands and were occupying Baghdad.  The fate of the marshes seemed to
be an open subject.  There was evidence that, in a few places, Iraqi
engineers had opened a few flood-gates to the marshes and that some
residents had broken through embankments in order to get fresh water
flowing again.  Some people began to experience a life in the marshes that
had abruptly stopped more than ten years earlier; meanwhile, the news
media began to wonder whether the marshes could recover by simply bringing
the water back or whether a more complicated and experimental management
strategy was going to be required.

For Online Discussion:

Put yourself in the sandals of a marsh refugee who has been living in a
camp in Iran for more than ten years and who has just learned that your
home region has just been "liberated" by the Americans.  What are your
considerations, requirements, needs for information, assurance and
assistance for deciding whether to leave the camp and go home?

References:

MacAskill, Ewen. 2003. Marsh Arabs ambivalent about returning to their
lost paradise. The Guardian. April 26.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,943945.00.html

Zavis, Alexandra. 2003. Paradise lost in southern Iraq: Many scholars say
this was Garden of Eden. The Charlotte Observer. April 30.
http://www.charlotte.com/mld/observer/news/5748478.htm

Molavi, Afshin. 2003. Iraq's Eden: Reviving the legendary marshes.
news.nationalgeographic.com. May 1.
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2003/05/0501_030501_arabmarshes.html

Dixon, Robyn. 2003. After the war: Back into the rhythm of the fisherman's
life: The Iraqi regime, to slow U.S. forces, flooded marshes drained in
1991. With the return of water came those whose living depended on it. Los
Angeles Times. May 5. abridged version reprinted in St. Augustine Record.
May 13. http://staugustinerecord.com/stories/051303/ira_1532302.shtml

Schifferes, Steve. 2003. US pledges aid for Iraq marshes.  BBC News. May
8.  http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/3009249.stm

Center for Cooperative Research. 2003. Iraqi Oil and Gas Reserves, Oil
Industry. May 12, 2003.
http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/oil/countries/iraq.html

Day 4: Work to Do

By mid-2003, visitors to the marsh region have discovered more in two or
three months than anyone has learned in the more than ten previous years,
perhaps even twenty.  There are numerous questions about the future of the
marshes: Will they recover by natural forces alone? If not, who will do
the work?  Will returning refugees have places to live and work?  Will
they get in the way?  Is there a preferred step-by-step restoration plan?
Can, and should, all the marshes be restored or only a portion?  Who will
decide the future of the region?  There is an obvious and serious void
here: the absence of a pre-existing grass-roots (or reed-roots) movement
or interest group former marsh inhabitants. Furthermore, there are very
few, if any, individuals from the marshes who have articulated a vision of
the  future that others could support.  The situation is of a scattered
people who at one time collectively adapted to conditions in the marshes
but who did not have an institutional identity or a recognized inalienable
right to exist within Southern Iraq and among the world community of
nations as "people of the marshes."   In this way, they shared the plight
and vulnerability of millions of other indigenous people on all
continents.

For Online Discussion:

As you read this week's articles, are you optimistic or pessimistic about
the future of the marshes?  Could you see yourself becoming involved?
What role do you think you could play?  What assignment would you like to
have?  Would it be predominantly ecological or humanitarian?  What
capabilities do you already have for the work?  What else would you do to
prepare yourself?

References:

Basu, Paroma. 2003. Paradise regained? A plan to restore Iraq's wetland
graveyard. The Village Voice. May 21-27.
http://www.villagevoice.com/issues/0321/basu.php

El-Awady, Aisha. 2003. Mesopotamian marshlands: Going down the drain?
IslamOnline.net. May 22.
http://www.islamonline.net/English/Science/2003/05/article10.shtml

Rosenblum, Mort. 2003. Saddam's reign brings ecological ruin. Portsmouth
Herald. May 25. Seacoastonline.
http://www.seacoastonline.com/2003news/05252003/world/30628.htm

United Nations Environment Programme. 2003. Water returns to the
desiccated Mesopotamian marshlands. May 28.
http://www.grid.unep.ch/activities/sustainable/tigris/marshlands/

Evans, Robert. 2003. Iraq's dried-out marshlands reviving, UN says.
Reuters News Service. May 30.
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/20985/story.htm

United Nations Office of the Humanitarian Coordinator for Iraq, Lower
South. 2003. United Nations Inter-Agency Assessment of Vulnerable Groups:
Part I: Marsh Arabs. June 30.
http://www.reliefweb.int/library/documents/2003/ohci-irq-30jun.pdf

Day 5: Whose Marshes?

By the end of 2003, the war had passed by the marshes; most of the
conflict was taking place near Baghdad.  The South was under the military
control of British troops but the development future of the region was
under the control of the United States.  It was primarily up to Congress
to determine how much money would be spent for which projects; oddly,
funds requested for restoring the marshes were completely refused, leaving
only $4 million from the Department of State's Agency for International
Development earmarked in an ad hoc fashion to a single private contractor
for preliminary studies.  Some remaining survivors of the former marshes
were beginning to speak out, and an office for marsh restoration had been
created by the new Iraq ministries of water resources and environment, but
in the absence of restoration funds, no actual work was going to take
place.

For Online Discussion:

After studying a year's worth of documents about the marshes, what can you
say about the cast of characters -- the writers, the former marsh
inhabitants, the scientists, the government officials, organizational
representatives and others.  How many of each are there?  Is their power
and influence commensurate to their numbers?  Can you imagine a way to
coordinate them into a single restoration project?

References:

Randerson, James. 2003. Iraqi's reclaim their ancient wetlands.
NewScientist.com. October 1.
http://www.newscientist.com/news/print.jsp?id=ns99994217 and Return of the
Marshes [map]
http://www.newscientist.com/misc/popup_ns.jsp?id=ns99994217F1

Associated Press. 2003. Restoring "Garden of Eden" a priority for Bush but
now lawmakers. PlanetSave.com. October 16.
http://planetsave.com/ViewStory.asp?ID=4396 and photo by Julie Jacobson.
Fisherman on Tigris, Qurnah, April 28, 2003.
http://photoarchive.ap.org/apdbs/Intl_Photos/views/mini/6747/6747947.jpg

United Nations Environment Programme. 2003. Environment in Iraq: UNEP
Progress Report. October 20.
http://postconflict.unep.ch/publications/Iraq_PR.pdf

Ryu, Alisha. 2003. Iraq/Wetlands. Voice of America.
http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/library/news/iraq/2003/10/iraq-031030-30e68673.htm

Caroline Hawley. 2003. New hope for Iraq's Marsh Arabs. BBC News. November
5. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/3244571.stm

Komarow, Steven. 2003. Marsh Arabs long for return of wetlands. USA Today.
November 25.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/iraq/2003-11-25-marsh-arabs-usat_x.htm
and flash graphic
http://www.usatoday.com/news/graphics/iraq_marshlands/flash.htm

Stannard, Matthew B. 2003. Life flows to dying wetlands: Postwar water
aids Iraq's Marsh Arabs. San Francisco Chronicle. December 28. reprinted
in mindfully.org.
http://www.mindfully.org/Water/2003/Iraq-Wetland-Restoration28dec03.htm

- - - - - - -

WEEK III.  CAST OF CHARACTERS

As in any gripping drama, the story of the marshes has a formidable cast
of characters.  You will recognize protagonists, antagonists, innocent and
not-so-innocent multitudes, leaders, followers, opportunists, zealots,
ambivalents, armchair generals, observers, analysts, pundits and
panderers.  In addition, because the marshlands occupied one of the
world's great geographical and cultural crossroads for thousands of years,
the characters have hailed from all corners of the globe.  And,  because
of gigantic deposits of crude oil and gas a thousands of feet below the
surface, some characters have a narrow but insatiable appetite for that
buried treasure -- they care not a wit for the plight of the people and
places above.

To restore the marshes, the outlines of its past are important, but the
shape of its future is absolutely essential.  Looked at in this way, while
the cast requires some old characters, especially those who remember when
and how the water used to flow through Mesopotamia, it also needs a
constant supply of new characters; it may take generations to repair the
damage of a single devastating decade.  Likely, they will not all come
from Iraq nor even from the Middle East.  Indeed, in this drama, all the
world's the stage.

Research/Writing Assignment:

>From your readings and any other sources of information you find, create a
directory of environmental, cultural and economic organizations, agencies,
governments, schools, individuals, print and broadcast media, businesses
and other groups institutions that could have a role to play in the
restoration of the marshlands and the return of people to the region.
Briefly describe what those roles could be and rank their potential as
low, medium or high.

Day 1: United States

By virtue of its military occupation of Iraq, its considerable spending
power, and its monopoly on coordination of reconstruction work, the United
States Government has the potential to make or break the future of the
marshlands.  But to date, very little actual restoration has occurred,
while ecological deterioration continues except in a few locations where
water has minimally returned.  The White House, Department of State
including the Agency for International Development, Congress and an inner
circle of consultants and contractors have exhibited a discernible
ambivalence towards the marshes and its former inhabitants, and they have
discouraged efforts to internationalize the restoration effort.  Only a
small amount of money has been allotted, mainly for preliminary studies.
Despite wide public interest in and fascination with the history of the
marshlands and sympathy for its demise, the Government has produced no
comprehensive strategy, has no regularly-occurring public meetings, and
has made no significant effort to inform, inspire and tap into the
considerable technical capabilities of American universities and
engineering firms similar to the way it has promoted reconstruction of
Iraq's energy, water and transportation infrastructure.  Overall, there
seems to be a distinct bias towards urban and agricultural development of
the land the marshes once occupied, rather than an intention to restore
the marshes to their full extent as a functioning wetlands region of
global importance.

For Online Discussion:

How would you take advantage of the capabilities of the U.S. Government
and American society to fully restore the marshes of Southern Iraq?  What
obstacles would you expect?  How would you overcome them?

References:

[audio] Here-and-Now. 2003. Restoring Iraq's marshland. April 8.
http://www.here-now.org/shows/2003/04/20030408.asp

United States Department of State.  undated. [caption] This photo of the
vibrant life of the Iraqi marshlands was taken in 1974. In 1994. Sixty
percent of the wetlands were destroyed.  In 2001, commercial satellite
imagery showed that only 10-14 percent of Iraq's southern marshlands
remain. (Corbis). Office of Information Programs.
http://usinfo.state.gov/regional/nea/iraq/focus/marsh.htm

United States Department of State. undated. [caption] A view of the
interior of the unique reed architecture built by the people of the Iraqi
marshes.  The marshes were once home to 500,000 Marsh Arabs. (Corbis,
1974). Office of Information Programs.
http://usinfo.state.gov/regional/nea/iraq/focus/reed.htm

United States Agency for International Development. 2003. Iraq
reconstruction: Environmental protection and natural resource management.
March 21. http://www.state.gov/g/oes/rls/fs/2003/19225.htm

United States Agency for International Development. 2003. Remarks by
Andrew S. Natsios, Administrator, U.S. Agency for International
Development. May 7. http://www.usaid.gov/press/speeches/2003/sp030507.html

Fuller, Jim. 2003. Natsios says Iraqis must have a part in marshland
restoration: USAID head calls damaged marshlands an issue that will not go
away. International Information Programs, United States Department of
State. May 8.
http://www.usinfo.state.gov/regional/nea/iraq/text2003/0508natsios.htm

United States Agency for International Development. 2003. Strategies for
Assisting the Marsh Dwellers and Restoring the Marshlands in Southern
Iraq: Interim Status Report. September. [personal copy on webct site]

Day 2: Iraq

In mid-2003, administrative specialists from the United States re-formed
the executive branch of the transitional government of Iraq.  This
included creating a Ministry of Environment, and also a Ministry of Water
Resources from the former Ministry of Irrigation.  These two ministries
established a Center for Marshlands Restoration, located outside Baghdad,
that has a small staff and budget and minimal planning and implementation
capabilities for doing actual restoration of the marshes.  To date, the
Center does not have a website, has not published a restoration plan or
strategy, and it is not clear whether and how foreign countries,
companies, academic institutions or individuals can join the overall
restoration effort.  A website of the Ministry of Water Resources that
contained several papers and plans advocating marshlands restoration no
longer appears on the internet.  While the marshlands is principally
occupied by Shi'a Moslems, the current head of the Ministry of Water
Resources is Kurdish.

For Online Discussion:

Imagine you were an Iraqi government official who wanted to start a
campaign to restore the marshes.  How would you go about it?  What
willingness, know-how and resources would you have to gather?  Would you
do it as an exclusive Iraqi program or would you try to internationalize
the effort?  Explain your reasoning.

References:

Iraq Ministry of Water Resources. 2003. [website] [personal copy on webct
site].

United States Army Corps of Engineers. 2003. The Marsh Arabs: Ancient way
of life being restored. photos by Hassan Janabi.
http://www.hq.usace.army.mil/cepa/pubs/nov03/story17.htm

United States Army Corps of Engineers. 2003. Iraqi Ministry of Water
Resources is similar to Corps. November.
http://www.hq.usace.army.mil/cepa/pubs/nov03/story23.htm

Durbak, Ivan. 2003. Engineers speaks on his assignment in Iraq as interim
minister of irrigation. December 14. The Ukranian Weekly.
http://www.ukrweekly.com/Archive/2003/500308.shtml

Day 3: United Nations

Concern for the fate of the marshes of Southern Iraq has been expressed
primarily through numerous reports and meetings of the U.N. Environment
Programme [UNEP], specifically its mapping and post-conflict assessment
staff in Geneva, Switzerland.  Beginning in early 2003, UNEP has held
regular roundtable meetings on environmental and health conditions in
Iraq, including the marshlands.  Meeting participants have come from a
variety of enthusiastic U.N. agencies and international NGO's who have
been working in Iraq and Iran throughout the period between the 1991 Gulf
War and last year's re-invasion.  UNEP staff have repeatedly expressed
their sense of urgency for ecological restoration of the marshes, but they
have neither the power nor the funds to initiate projects.  So far, the
United Nations has been in a stand-by mode while the United States largely
determines the course and pace of events in Iraq.

For Online Discussion:

How would you position the United Nations as a major player in the
restoration of the marshes?  Would you work more closely with people at
the governmental, academic, citizens organization or corporate sector?  Or
in some combination?  Explain your reasoning.

References:

United Nations Environment Programme. 2003. Meeting Summary, Iraq and the
Environment: Roundtable Meeting and Mesopotamian Marshlands Forum. May 23.
[personal copy on webct site]

United Nations Environment Programme. 2003. Experts urge international
cooperation on rehabilitating Mesopotamian Marshlands. May 28.
http://postconflict.unep.ch/pressiraq28may2003.htm

United Nations Environment Programme. 2003. Meeting Summary, Fourth UNEP
Roundtable Meeting on the Environment in Iraq. August 29. [personal copy
on webct site]

United Nations Environment Programme. 2003. Fourth Roundtable on the
Environment in Iraq [UNEP slide presentation]. August 29. [personal copy
on webct site]

United Nations Environment Programme. 2003. Meeting Summary, Fifth UNEP
Roundtable Meeting on the Environment in Iraq. October 20. [personal copy
on webct site]

United Nations Environment Programme. 2003. Meeting Summary, Sixth UNEP
Roundtable Meeting on the Environment in Iraq. November 21. [personal copy
on webct site]

Day 4: Non-Governmental Organizations and Academia

For more than ten years, two women-led organizations, AMAR Appeal [U.K.]
and Iraq Foundation [U.S.] have conducted major environmental research and
humanitarian aid programs in Iraq that include the marshes and the
thousands of refugees who fled the region to Iran and other parts of the
world.  Their annual operating budgets -- in the few-million dollar range
come from a variety of contributions, grants and contracts.  Of note, Iraq
Foundation's "Eden Again" project received approximately $200,000 from the
U.S. Department of State to assemble an international technical panel to
deliberate on the feasibility of marshlands restoration.  Their report was
issued just before American and British troops re-invaded Iraq early in
2003.

In addition to humanitarian aid organizations, wildlife and nature
organizations such as Birdlife International, Wetlands International and
the office of the Ramsar Convention on wetlands protection, have given a
high priority to the restoration of the marshlands.  They recognize the
intrinsic and historical value of the marshes as habitat for endangered
and threatened species and as stopover locations for millions of migratory
birds who traverse Asia, Europe and Africa.

For Online Discussion:

What if any kind of new organization would you create to specifically
address the task of ecological restoration of the marshes?  Who would
comprise its membership?  Where would its money come from?  Who would do
the actual work of restoration?

References:

The AMAR International Charitable Foundation. 2004. The Marsh Arabs and
the Marshlands. http://www.amarappeal.com/marsh_arabs.php

Iraq Foundation. 2003. The "Eden Again" Project: A new project sponsored
by the Iraq Foundation. http://216.219.216.117/projects/edenagain

Iraq Foundation. 2003. Building a Scientific Basis for Restoration of the
Mesopotamian Marshlands. May.
http://www.iraqfoundation.org/projects/edenagain/2003/dmay/5_report.html
http://www.iraqfoundation.org/projects/edenagain/2003/dmay/report.doc

Dannheiser, Ralph. 2003. Much of Iraq's devastated marshlands can be
restored, scientists say: "Eden Again" project outlines action plan.
International Information Programs, United States Department of State.
April 30. http://usinfo.state.gov/regional/nea/iraq/text2003/0430marsh.htm

Eden Again. 2003. Restoration of the Mesopotamian Marshlands.
http://www.edenagain.org

Gray, Denis D. 2003. Resurrecting Eden. National Wildlife Federation.
February/March 2004.
http://www.nwf.org/nationalwildlife/article/cfm?articleid=883&issueid=66

Furlow, Bryant. 2003. Eden Again. UCDavisOnline. Fall.
http://www-ucdmag.ucdavis.edu/fall03/feature_3.html

BirdLife International. 2003. BirdLife to assess environmental impact of
war in Iraq. April 29.
http://www.birdlife.org.uk/news/news/2003/04/iraq_survey.html

Ornithomedia.com. 2004. Faire revivre les marais irakiens [Reviving the
marshes of Iraq]. February 7.
http://www.ornithomedia.com/magazine/mag_art107_1.htm

Maltby, Edward. 2003. Opportunities for Marshland Restoration [slide
show]. May 23. [personal copy on webct site].

Earthbeat. 2003. Mesopotamian Marshlands [with audio]. March 29.
http://www.abc.net.au/rn/science/earth/stories/s817672.htm

Ahmed, Hamid K. 2003. The Marshes of Southern Iraq and the Marsh Arabs:
Genocide and Ecocide. November 13. [personal copy on webct site].

Iraqi American Chamber of Commerce & Industry. 2003. Think Tanks: Middle
East Resources. October 2.
http://www.i-acci.org/articles/publish/printer_19.shtml

Iraqi American Chamber of Commerce & Industry. 2003. Think Tanks: U.S.
Resources. October 2.
http://www.i-acci.org/articles/publish/printer_20.shtml

Day 5: Business and Industry

The typical wetlands restoration requires a wide range of planning,
design, construction and monitoring performed by scientists and engineers,
materials specialists, semi-skilled and ordinary laborers working in
combination at various times during the project.  If the wetland is also a
homeland, as is the case with southern Iraq, then the project must also
include social scientists, community organizers, land surveyors, housing
contractors and others responsible for the smooth return and resettlement
of refugees and the recovery of their lost livelihoods.

A relatively small number of huge multi-purpose engineering design and
construction firms have received contracts from the U.S. Government to
work in post-war Iraq on infrastructure repair, health and social
services, agriculture development, government administration and public
education.  But to date, only one company has been authorized and
minimally funded to address the needs of the marshes and the people who
used to live there.  Clearly, for such a vast area, a fully-developed
restoration plan could make use of hundreds of companies from Iraq and
overseas and thousands of workers from among Iraq's refugee population.

The presence and effects of powerful oil companies already working in
southern Iraq or hoping to work there soon must also be factored into the
fate of the marshes; in the instructor's opinion, their influence on the
course of events cannot be underestimated.  Worldwide, oil exploration,
extraction, refining and transporting have severely damaged ecosystems,
uprooted and even killed indigenous people and contributed very little to
the their economies and well-being.  Hypothetically, profits from careful
oil development in and around the marshlands could pay for restoration.
But for now, the chances for harmony between life on water and life on oil
in southern Iraq seems as remote as the possibility of life on Mars.

For Online Discussion:

Beginning now, what kinds of commercial activities and opportunities can
you imagine could be developed around a project for restoring the
marshlands of southern Iraq?  What kind of work would you personally
prefer to do and why?  How would you go about launching such a commercial
venture?

References:

Development Alternatives Inc. 2003. DAI leads Marshlands restoration
program. December. http://www.dai.com/dai_news/iraq_marshlands.htm

Iraqi American Chamber of Commerce & Industry. 2003. Doing Business in
Iraq.
http://www.i-acci.org/articles/publish/printer_191.shtml

United States Geological Survey. 2003. Mesopotamian Foredeep Basin: Total
Petroleum Systems.
http://energy.cr.usgs.gov/WEcont/regions/reg2/p2/P2024.pdf

Platts. 2003. Iraq oil map.
http://www.platts.com/features/Iraq/Iraq_detailed.gif

Center for Cooperative Research. 2003. Iraqi Oil and Gas Reserves, Oil
Industry. May 12, 2003.
http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/oil/countries/iraq.html

Judicial Watch. 2003. Cheney energy task force documents feature map of
Iraqi oilfields. July 17. http://www.judicialwatch.org/printer_3533.shtml

Al-Gailani, Mohammad. 2003. Assessing Iraq's Oil Potential. Geotimes.
October. http://www.geotimes.org/oct03/feature_oil.html

- - - - - - -

WEEK IV.  RESTORATION TOOLBOX

Ecological restoration is the deliberate attempt to heal the wounds of
forests, watersheds, prairies, mountains, wetlands, coastal zones and
other land and water features that have suffered from natural and man-made
disasters, wars, toxic contamination, extinction of species, economic
hardships and exploitation, or combinations of these.  The goal is to
return damaged ecosystems to their "former selves", as closely as
possible, in terms of structure, function, aesthetics, vitality,
biological diversity, productivity and persistence.

Ecological restoration is recognized as a both a legitimate scientific
profession and also an artistic and interpretive skill.  It is practiced
at the relatively small scale of a city park and on the much larger scale
of entire landscapes and bioregions.  Restoration specialists can offer no
guarantee of successful outcomes -- one could say that its current state
of development is comparable to the early years of heart transplantation
in the medical profession.   But that does not mean that the challenge of
restoration should be, or will be, avoided.  Indeed, more and more
restoration efforts are required every year to counteract the ecological
destruction that seem to be never-ending.

Research/Writing Assignment:

Suggest a sequence of at least twenty steps for restoring the marshes of
southern Iraq and describe what you would try to accomplish each step of
the way.  On the positive side, take into account a) the thousands of
refugees who need immediate work and places to resettle, b) the national
and international sympathy for the plight of the marshes, and c) the array
of organizations, agencies and international institutions ready and
willing to provide expertise, funds and assistance. On the negative side,
take into account a) the fact that the region is still a war zone, b) that
it is almost entirely dried out, c) that it has been considerably
depopulated for the past 10-15 years, and d) that it is likely
heavily-polluted with environmental poisons, land mines, depleted uranium
and other wastes of war.   How much do you think you could accomplish in
ten years?  In twenty years?

Day 1: Conservation

Conservation is fundamentally a moral imperative and a social ethic that
imposes considerable and immutable responsibilities on humankind.  The
age-old practice of natural resource conservation comes from realizing --
and accepting -- that the Earth is a solitary, finite and interconnected
planetary system upon which we depend that has precise regulatory
processes and flows that perpetuate life but are vulnerable to the
depletion, diversion, contamination and extinction of its resources.
Thus, we are compelled to care for Nature as if it were our own life.  Not
doing so impoverishes us and everyone who comes afterwards.

The wonder of Mesopotamia and the lasting impression it has made on the
world is due primarily to its longevity that, in turn, permitted the
development of agriculture, cities, trade routes, literature, common law,
and the other attributes of civilization that we take for granted today.
This longevity was made possible by water, soil, plant and animal
conservation practices that the inhabitants discovered, learned and taught
each other over hundreds of generations  a span of time beyond ordinary
comprehension.  In a practical sense, their conservation ethic also
enabled them to manage annual floods, withstand periodic droughts, and
adapt to climate change and a steadily-receding coastline that turned
their watery surroundings from saline to fresh.   The reward for all this
was that they were able to remain "in place" as a distinct people for
thousands of years; said another way, they were able to avoid becoming
environmental refugees.

For Online Discussion:

Imagine that you wanted to organize an "Adopt-a-Marsh" program to help
save a small portion of the marshlands in southern Iraq.  How would you go
about it?  What would your first year of activities look like?  How would
you know if you were succeeding?  Refer to "The Conservation Project
Manual" of BP and Birdlife International for guidance.

References:

[audio] Living on Earth. 2003. Restoring Iraq's Garden of Eden. March 28.
http://www.loe.org/ETS/organizations.php3?action=printContentItem&orgid=33&typeID=17&itemID=145

Bibby, C.J. and C. Alder (eds). 2003. The Conservation Project Manual. BP
Conservation Programme, Cambridge, UK.
<http://www.conservation.bp.com/pdfs/
projectmanual/ConservationProjectManual.pdf>

Day 2: Ecological Restoration

While the practice of conservation may be primarily concerned about saving
what's left in an ecosystem, ecological restoration is concerned about
reintroducing or replacing what's missing in the way of a system's
historical structure and function.  In a way, it is the art of "reading
between the lines" of environmental disaster stories and then doing
something to make the hidden texts reappear.

Ecological restoration has become a bonafide scientific profession with an
international society, a peer-reviewed journal, periodic meetings and
conferences, a distinctive technical vocabulary and perhaps thousands of
projects going on throughout the world at any one time.  Because of the
large numbers of variables in the typical restoration project, some of
them beyond the control of the people involved, the outcomes are often
unpredictable.  For that reason, restoration workers must have an open
mind, good powers of observation and an experimental attitude.  On the
other hand, it is well-known that Nature has considerable restorative
forces and may need little more than the re-supply of one or two major
missing elements -- such as water or sunlight -- to begin recovery.  For
example, in some desiccated portions of the former marshlands of southern
Iraq, reed beds have begun to grow again after residents opened check dams
or breached embankments that were holding water back for ten years or
more.

The most difficult restoration projects may be those where ecosystems
suffer some kind of irreversible or nearly-irreversible damage.  Examples
of biological damage of this kind include the extinction of one or more
original plant or animal species, or the invasion of new species
previously unknown to the region.  Examples of physical damage include the
sudden covering of land with deep layers of hot, impenetrable lava from a
volcanic eruption on the Caribbean island of Montserrat and the spillage
of huge amounts of petroleum from the oil fields of the Niger River delta.
An example of chemical damage is the severe salinization of marsh beds
caused by the accumulation of salts as the Iraqi government drained and
dried the marshes in the 1990's.

For Online Discussion:

Based on your readings up to now and other information you have gathered,
what differences can you find between the concepts, activities, goals and
objectives of the current Iraq marshlands restoration project and the
typical project described in documents of the Society for Ecological
Restoration?  How would you recognize the difference between a restoration
project and a development project?

References:

Windhager, Steve. undated. The philosophy of ecological restoration:
Reconnecting nature and ourselves.
http://www.dmg.gov/resto-pres/wed-02-windhager.pdf

Society for Ecological Restoration International. 2003. Environmental
Policies of the Society for Ecological Restoration.
http://www.ser.org/wor.php?pg=scipolinitiatives

Clewell, Andre, John Rieger and John Munro. 2000. Guidelines for
Developing and
Managing Ecological Restoration Projects. Society for Ecological
Restoration
International. <http://www.ser.org/reading.pht?pg=guidelines4er>

Society for Ecological Restoration. 2002. The SER Primer on Ecological
Restoration International.  <http://www.ser.org/Primer.pdf>

Day 3: Wetlands

On an area basis, wetlands are among the most fertile and
abundantly-productive ecosystems.  They are often found as permanent
features where springs and streams, rivers and lakes and rivers and seas
meet.  In the latter, wetlands particularly shelter and promote the growth
of wildlife, especially migratory fish, that require a variety of aquatic
habitats during their life-cycle -- fresh water, brackish and salt.
Wetlands also form temporarily or seasonally along watercourses or
coastlines during floods and heavy storms.

Human populations have successfully established themselves in wetlands
regions, although living conditions there can be precarious.  When the
early Virginia colonists settled at the mouth of the James River around
1607, they quickly succumbed to malaria and other wetlands-borne diseases.
Had they established themselves a few miles upstream, above the
slowly-flowing marshes at the mouth of the river, their chances for
survival may have been better.  Once established, however, history has
shown that marshlands can nurture whole civilizations, for example those
of the Nile delta and of the land between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers.
There is much to learn from these inhabitants; their legends and lifeways
ought to be recognized and respected as testaments to human adaptability
and ingenuity.

For Online Discussion:

Educational material such as the "Discover Wetlands" curriculum from
Washington State included in these readings, is intended for students who
may live near wetlands but who likely don't actually live in them  or
directly depend upon them for food, clothing and shelter.  Its purpose is
to impart understanding, instill respect about wetlands and teach
restraint against destroying wetlands.  How much different would a
curriculum have to be for refugee children returning to the deep marshes
of southern Iraq?  Would they need to be educated about wetlands?  What
could we teach them to their health, longevity and quality of life?

References:

Lewis, Barry. 1995. Wetlands are more than mere swamps. In Environmental
Associates' publication Know Your Environment. reprinted by National
Academy of Sciences.
http://www.acnatsci/org/research/kye/wetlands_short.html

Lippy, Karen et al. 1995. Discover Wetlands: A Curriculum Guide.
Washington State Dept. of Ecology. Pub. No. 88-16.
http://www.ecy.wa.gov/pubs/8816b.pdf  and
http://www.ecy.wa.gov/pubs/8816c.pdf

Ramsar Convention. 2003. The Ramsar Convention on Wetlands.
http://www.ramsar.org

Ramsar Convention. 2002. Welcome to: A Directory of Wetlands of
International Importance. 7th edition.
http://www.wetlands.org/RDB/Directory.html

Day 4: Wetlands Restoration

In the United States, the clamor for wetlands restoration, especially San
Francisco's "Save the Bay" campaign during the early 1960's helped launch
the nation's environmental movement.  Concern for wetlands restoration
surged again in the recent years as one Presidential administration after
another let developers rampantly fill in wetlands along the Atlantic, Gulf
and Pacific coasts and permit cities and towns to sprawl across the
remaining marshes, flood plains  and aquifers of the country's interior.
The damage?  Billions of dollars of homes, businesses and municipal
facilities now in peril of floods and storms, lifetime volumes of precious
groundwater drained away or seriously contaminated, and a whole generation
of leaders slipping back into "Me First" and "Flat Earth" mentality.

Now, virtually every state's environmental agency is in damage-control
mode.  Some wetlands have been restored to a greater or lesser degree, but
overall there is plenty of evidence that Americans still don't recognize,
respect and value their wetlands.  A few examples:

--The country's largest and most-expensive wetlands restoration project,
the Florida Everglades, is thickly mired in politics under a thin veneer
of southern environmentalism.  This has been going on for 20 years or
more.

--After a recent trip to Iraq, Louisiana's Governor asserted that her own
state's rapidly-disappearing coastal wetlands deserved equal attention as
a war zone of a different kind.

A federal program that permits developers to destroy wetlands if they
re-create similar landscapes elsewhere has failed to stem the loss of
wetlands nationwide.  A devil's advocate report by the National Academy of
Sciences tries to blunt this criticism using technical and obtuse
language, but is not very convincing.  In part, it states, "The
significance of these results is not that equivalency among reference and
newly managed environments is not reached or that mitigation efforts
should not be done.  These results demonstrate that 1) ecological
equivalency may not be reached within a few months or for several years or
even decades, depending on the attribute that is of interest; 2) the
ecosystem does not move smoothly to an equilibrium or at the same rate for
all components; and 3) some components, including ones identified as
important in permits currently being issued, may never reach equivalency
with the natural reference wetland.  An obvious conclusion...is that the
generally observed 5-year limit on monitoring is insufficient when
evaluating whether a site has achieved parity with a reference system."

Under these circumstances, it may be fair to ask, "What can America offer
the marsh-lost people of southern Iraq?" Knowing our record of success,
would we really be their first choice?

For Online Discussion:

What arguments would you present and what incentives would you offer Iraq
to persuade it to restore the wetlands to their former extent and function
instead of letting them deteriorate further or be "reallocated" to dryland
farming, urbanization and oilfield development?

References:

Save the Bay. 2003.  Welcome to Save the Bay!
http://www.savesfbay.org/aboutus/history.cfm

New York Times Editorial. 2003. Politics and the Everglades. August 17.
reprinted by The Everglades Foundation.
http://www.saveoureverglades.org/news/editorials_politics.html

Blanco, Kathleen Babineaux. 2004. Louisiana's Wetlands [letter to the
editor] New York Times, February 23. reprinted by America's Wetland
Campaign to Save Coastal Louisiana.
<http://www.americaswetland.com/article.cfm?id=109&cateid=3&pageid=3&cid=18>

Schoch, Deborah. 2001. Report Finds Deep Flaws in Wetlands Program:
Researchers say plan that lets developers who destroy marshes re-create
them elsewhere has failed to stem the loss of such ecosystems. Los Angeles
Times. reprinted in Common Dreams NewsCenter.
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines01/0627-02.htm

Board on Environmental Studies and Toxicology. 2001. Outcomes of Wetland
Restoration and Creation, chapter 2 in Compensating for Wetland Losses
Under the Clean Water Act. National Academy of Sciences.
http://www.nap.edu/books/0309074320/html22.html#pagetop to
...html45.html#pagetop

Maryland Department of the Environment. undated. The Wetlands Restoration
Guidebook. Nontidal Wetlands Division.
http://www.mde.state.md.us/assets/document/restore.pdf

United States Department of Agriculture. 2000. Wetlands Reserve Program:
Restoring America's Wetlands. Natural Resources Conservation Service.
PA-1659. http://www.nrcs.usda.gov/programs/wrp/WRPpub.pdf

Brookhaven National Laboratory. undated. Technology Fact Sheet: Peconic
River Remedial Alternatives: Wetlands Restoration/Constructed Wetlands.
http://www.bnl.gov/erd/peconic/factsheet/wetlands.pdf

Day 5: Wadi Gaza Nature Park

While the fate of Iraq's marshlands hangs in the balance of war and peace,
there is an unusual case of wetlands restoration in another conflicted
environment right in the Middle East.  In mid-2001, the U. S. Agency for
International Development contributed more than $3 million to the U.N.
Development Programme of Assistance to the Palestinian People [UNDP/PAPP]
to reclaim and develop  Wadi Gaza, a small but significant marshland
created by streams that flow out of the Israeli hills toward the
Mediterranean Sea.  According to a USAID news release in July 2002,
"Determined to halt further ecological deterioration, before the damage
becomes irreversible  while also giving an economic boost to thousands of
unemployed Palestinians living nearby  USAID and the United Nations
Development Program (UNDP) have joined forces.  With the blessings of the
Palestinian Ministry of Environmental Affairs and the Gazan people, USAID
and UNDP are supporting a new vision for Wadi Gaza."  There is no
evidence, however, that USAID has introduced Iraqi wetland scientists and
students to this small but intriguing project.

For Online Discussion:

In the management plan for Wadi Gaza published by MedWetCoast, how is the
sequence of research and restoration steps put together?  What
similarities or differences would there be in a much larger project such
as in southern Iraq?   In the Wadi Gaza plan, what activities or steps
appeal to you the most?  Can you see yourself working on a project like
that?  Do you feel "ready to go"?  If not, what kind of additional
education and training do you think you need?

References:

United States Agency for International Development. 2002. Opening of the
New Wadi Gaza Nature Park Information Center. February 28.
http://www.usaid.gov/wbg/headline_19.htm

United States Agency for International Development. 2002. Saving the
Wetlands of Wadi Gaza [photographs]. June.
http://www.usaid.gov/wbg/story_0.htm

United States Agency for International Development. 2002. Saving the
Wetlands of Wadi Gaza. July. http://www.usaid.gov/wbg/spotlight_0.htm

United States Agency for International Development. 2003. Ambassador
Chamberlain visists Wadi Gaza Nature Park. September 18.
http://www.usaid.gov/wbg/headline_126.htm

MedWetCoast. 2002. MedWetCoast report: Management plan report: Wadi Gaza
nature reserve management plan.
http://www.medwetcoast.com/article.php3?id_article=164

MedWetCoast. 2002. Management Plan -- Wadi Gaza
<http://www.medwetcoast.com/IMG/wadigazamp_03-2003.zip>

- - - - - - -

WEEK V -- THE FLORIDA CONNECTION

The expansive "river of grass" known as the Florida Everglades was once a
life-giving hydrological feature in North America, comparable in size and
function to the Mesopotamian marshlands of southern Iraq.  Where, in
Middle Eastern legend, Mesopotamia held the Garden of Eden, Juan Ponce de
Leon searched the Everglades in the early 1500's for the Fountain of Youth
he suspected was within.  Mesopotamia and the Everglades both were the
significant homelands of indigenous tribes and the habitat of diverse
aquatic and semi-aquatic plants and animals.

Under the domination of Saddam Hussein, the Iraqi marshlands became a
manmade ecological catastrophe in less than ten years.  It took longer,
and more than tyranny, for the Everglades to reach it's own emergency
status.  That began in the 1880's, then accelerated after the 1940's,
caused by a succession of American Presidents, Florida State Governors,
their respective Congress and State Legislature and a varieties of
agencies who shared the deliberate goal to eliminate the natives, drain
the marshes and permit virtually unlimited agriculture, housing,
commercial development and cities to spread across the land.  At the
center of the Everglade's historic demise has been the U.S.  Army Corps of
Engineers, the same agency now charged with repairing the damaged
Everglades and also, for the moment, with determining the fate of Iraq's
marshes.

Research/Writing Assignment:

Listen to and watch the recorded webcast and read the prepared testimony
of the U.S. Congressional hearing on Iraq's marshes held in Washington,
D.C. on February 24, 2004 (see below).  Then, prepare your own testimony
as if you were a representative from any nationality of real or
hypothetical government agency or non-governmental  organization, or as an
individual testifying on your own behalf.   In your own words, explain
your purpose for appearing before the hearing, give a report of your
priorities and activities, goals and objectives.  You can base these on
any material already covered in the course.

Day 1: The Everglades 1

The Everglades ecosystem is a national and global treasure.  Public
pressure has secured National Park status for approximately the southern
third of the wetlands, while the remainder is in lesser government
protection or held as private or municipal property.  Agricultural
development and urbanization has destroyed approximately half of
Everglades' original extent.  Still, there is a large water-holding
capacity that is both an asset and a liability.  It is an asset because it
provides conveniently-drawn irrigation water for sugar cane and other
crops extensively grown on land drained and converted to plantation-style
agriculture, and drinking water to cities that sprawl along both the
southeastern and southwestern Florida coasts.  To deliver the water, the
U.S. Army Corps of Engineers ["the Corps"] designed, built and maintains a
network of canals and diversions.  At the same time, Everglades water is a
liability because, in rainy seasons, water flow from the Everglades
threatens those same low-lying farms and cities that have encroached into
the wetlands.  Thus, the Corps also created a drainage network to
intercept and accelerate the flow of water directly into Florida Bay.
This simultaneous dependence upon and wastage of Everglades' water --
mediated by 1,000 miles of canals, 720 miles of levees and several hundred
water control structures -- has come at the ultimate destruction of these
wetlands.

After at least twenty years of obvious failure at managing Everglades'
water resources -- in the Corps' words, "unintended adverse effects on the
unique and diverse environment that constitutes south Florida ecosystems,
including the Everglades and Florida Bay" -- citizens forced Congress to
pass a National Water Resources Development Act in 2000 that directed the
Corps to develop a Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan to "restore,
protect and preserve the water resources of central and southern Florida,
including the Everglades."  The estimated cost is almost $8,000,000,000
over approximately thirty years.  On close examination of the Act,
however, the goals are not directly ecological, but economic and social:
regain lost storage capacity, restore more natural hydropatterns, improve
timing and quantities of fresh water deliveries to estuaries and restore
water quality conditions.  This overwhelming emphasis on continued use of
the Everglades to subsidize excessive water use by Big Sugar, Big Farming
and Big Cities, has become a serious point of contention.

For Online Discussion:

What can you discern are the similarities and differences between the way
the National Park Service and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers look at the
Everglades and interpret their respective responsibilities toward these
wetlands?  Give specific examples.

References:

Florida International University. 2004.  Everglades Information Network: A
collaborative project of Florida International University Libraries and
numerous other libraries and information providers.
http://everglades.fiu.edu

Florida International University. 2004. Everglades Digital Library.
http://everglades.fiu.edu/library

Everglades University. 2004. The Everglades University Advantage.
http://www.evergladescollege.edu

United States National Park Service. 2001. Everglades National Park
Strategic Plan, 2001-2005.
http://www.nps.gov/ever/current/strategicplan.pdf

_____. 2003. The Everglades Ecosystem: Everglades National Park.
http://www.nps.gov/ever/eco

_____. 2000.  Restoration Efforts: Everglades National Park: Evolution of
Ecosystem Restoration Efforts. http://www.nps.gov/ever/eco/restore.htm

United States Army Corps of Engineers. 2004. Rescuing an endangered
ecosystem  the journey to restore America's Everglades.
http://www.evergladesplan.org

_____. Undated. The Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan (CERP)
http://www.evergladesplan/org/about/rest_plan.cfm,
http://www.evergladesplan/org/about/rest_plan_01.cfm,
http://www.evergladesplan/org/about/rest_plan_02.cfm,
http://www.evergladesplan/org/about/rest_plan_03.cfm

Day 2: The Everglades 2

After Congress passed landmark legislation in 2000, Florida followed with
its own "Everglades Forever Act" to reverse years of destruction of land,
water and wildlife.  The intentions of both laws were to replenish
Everglades' water and reduce pollution -- especially excessive phosphorus
-- going into it from sugar cane plantations and other farming activities.
It cannot be said restoration is on-schedule.  A relatively small cast of
very influential characters are retarding the process, with local,
regional, national and international political overtones clearly showing
through.  Correspondingly, all of this has been scrutinized and
criticized, broadcasted and written about, not only within Florida but at
a great distance, even overseas.  As a consequence, there is global
awareness of the dynamics of failed ecological restoration of wetlands,
and many are wondering what can be done to avoid the same fate in the
effort to restore the marshes of southern Iraq, a wetland of comparable
size that coincidentally covers gigantic deposits of crude oil beneath the
surface.

For Online Discussion:

Where do you think the balance should be made between a) farming and urban
development in southern Florida versus b) the integrity of the Everglades
as a functioning wetlands ecosystem?  If you were Governor of Florida, how
would you resist the pressures from farming and real estate interests
described in the readings?  If you were Florida's director of natural
resources, what would you propose to swing the balance back towards
protecting and restoring the Everglades?

References:

Levin, Ted. 2003. Bitter Sweets: A politically connected industry
devastates the Everglades. E Magazine. November 28.
http://www.emagazine.com/view/?383

Dahlburg, John Thor. 2003. The sway of cattails and politics. Los Angeles
Times. August 22. reprinted at
http://www.mindfully.org/Heritage/2003/Everglades-Politics22aug03.htm

Grunwald, Michael. 2002. The Swamp [series of eight articles]. Washington
Post. June 23-26. series reprinted at
http://www.ussugar.com/sugarnews/everglades/swamp.html

_____. 2002. The swamp: Can $8 billion restore the Everglades? A rescue
plan, bold and uncertain. Washington Post. June 23. reprinted at
http://www.ussugar.com/sugarnews/everglades/swamp_series/swamp_part1.html

_____. 2002. The swamp: Mining the Everglades in order to save it: Between
rock and a hard place. Washington Post, June 24. reprinted at
http://www.ussugar.com/sugarnews/everglades/swamp_series/swamp_part2.html

_____. 2002. The swamp: To the White House, by way of the Everglades.
Washington Post. June 24. reprinted at
http://www.ussugar.com/sugarnews/everglades/swamp_series/swamp_part3.html

_____. 2002. The swamp: Water Quality is long-standing issue for tribe.
Washington Post. June 24. reprinted at
http://www.ussugar.com/sugarnews/everglades/swamp_series/swamp_part4.html

____. 2002. The swamp: Growing Pains in southwest Florida: More
development pushes Everglades to the edge. Washington Post. June 25.
reprinted at
http://ussugar.com/sugarnews/everglades/swamp_series/swamp_part5.html

_____. 2002. The swamp: when in doubt, blame Big Sugar: Once the
Everglades chief ecological villain, Industry has plenty of company.
Washington Post. June 25. reprinted at
http://www.ussugar.com/sugarnews/everglades/swamp_series/swamp_part6.html

_____. 2002. The swamp: A river unleashed: An environmental reversal of
fortune: The Kissimmee's revival could provide lessons for restoring the
Everglades. Washington Post. June 26. reprinted at
http://www.ussugar.com/sugarnews/everglades/swamp_series/swamp_part7.html

_____. 2002. The swamp: Among environmentalists, the Great Divide.
Washington Post. June 26. reprinted at
http://www.ussugar.com/sugarnews/everglades/swamp_series/swamp_part8.html

Day 3: Marshlands Congressional Hearing

In February 2004, U.S. Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, representing
Miami, Florida, convened a hearing in her capacity as chair of the
Subcommittee on the Middle East and Central Asia, committee on
International Relations.  The subject of the hearing was "United States
and the Iraqi Marshlands: An Environmental Response".  Four witnesses
testified.  The hearing was webcast on the internet and is still posted
there.  To the instructor's knowledge, it is the only presentation on the
plight and fate of the marshes that the U.S. government has ever given to
the American public; all other presentations have been private or to
limited audiences.

In her remarks, Cong. Ros-Lehtinen noted that Congress did not approve the
Administration's 2003 request for $100 million toward restoration and that
"today, however, we must reexamine the issue."  In addition to her concern
for the marshes per se, she specifically added "and if possible a
restoration of the homes for the Marsh Arabs, so many of whom remain as
refugees in their own country and in neighboring ones as well."

For Online Discussion:

What are the similarities and differences among the testimony of the
hearing witnesses?  Do you have confidence in the program described by the
State Department witnesses?  What does the U.S. government plan to do with
the network of drains, levees and canals that Saddam Hussein built to
destroy the marshes?  What, if any, sense of urgency did the witnesses
express?  How does this compare with predictions made by the United
Nations Environment Programme in its reports that you read earlier in the
course?

References:

Ros-Lehtinen, Ileana. 2004. Congressional website.
http://www.house.gov/ros-lehtinen

U.S. House of Representatives. 2004. United States and the Iraqi
Marshlands: An
Environmental Response. February 24.
[meeting notice]
http://wwwc.house.gov/international_relations/108/meca022404.htm
[audio/video webcast] http://boss.streamos.com/real/hir/34_me022404.smi
http://wwwc.house.gov/international_relations/108/ros022404.htm
http://wwwc.house.gov/international_relations/108/wes022404.htm
http://wwwc.house.gov/international_relations/108/mir022404.htm
http://wwwc.house.gov/international_relations/108/alw022404.htm

Day 4: Ghosts of the Marshes

There are only a few books written by Western authors about the time
before the marshes were destroyed by Saddam Hussein's regime: The Marsh
Arab: Haji Rikkan by Fulanain (pseudonym of Monica Grace Hedcock and
Stuart Edwin Hedgcock) [1928], Marsh Dwellers of the Euphrates Delta by
S.M. Salim [1962], People of the Reeds by Gavin Maxwell [1957], The Marsh
Arabs by Wilfred Thesiger [1964] and Iraq: Land of Two Rivers by Gavin
Young [1980].  Two brief articles appeared in National Geographic
Magazine, one in 1958 by Wilfred Thesiger and one in 1976 by Gavin Young,
then nothing afterwards.  The people described in those books and articles
are likely very old or already dead, leaving the marshes bereft of leaders
with personal memory of a time when the marshes functioned as a relatively
intact ecosystem, culture and economy.  This also leaves the marshes and
the people vulnerable to plans for the region that emphasize development
on dry land more than restoration of a watery world that once supported a
half-million people.  Therefore, anyone who advocates restoration rather
than development begins at a distinct disadvantage.

For Online Discussion:

What elements of life in the former marshes would you like to restore in
the present day?  What elements would you modify in some way to improve
the environment and people's health, living standards and ability to
resist future threats?

References:

Thesiger, Wilfred. 1958. Marsh Dwellers of Southern Iraq: Primitive
Ma'dan, Building Cathedral-like Houses of Reeds, Share a Watery domain
with Buffaloes and Wild Boars. National Geographic, vol. 113, February,
pp202-239. [copy in library or on webct site]

Young, Gavin. 1976. Water Dwellers in a Desert World. National Geographic,
vol. 149, April, pp502-523. [copy in library or on webct site]

Day 5: Wrap-up and Evaluation

The people and the environment of the marshes of southern Iraq have
suffered a major man-made disaster.  For more than ten years, government
officials, scientists and engineers from all over the world professed the
goals of ecological restoration and refugee resettlement in the marshes.
Yet, today, many of those same people seem to have prematurely judged the
marshes "dead on arrival" before even attempting the first stages of
actual restoration.  Their pronouncements not only dampen international
enthusiasm for rejuvenating the "Garden of Eden" but also deprives former
inhabitants and others who might want to live in the region  and many
generations to come  the chance to challenge these prejudgements and make
themselves a homeland that might again achieve sustainability in the
Middle East.  For this to happen, new leaders, paradigms and plans for
restoration must arise and become quickly rooted in the region, with
cooperation and support from individuals, organizations, governments,
companies and institutions within Iraq and outside the country.

For Online Discussion:

What is education for?  What one additional principle for education can
you add to David Orr's list of six?  How would you apply these principles
to the restoration of southern Iraq's marshes?

References:

Orr, David. 1991. What is education for? in Context Institute. The
Learning Revolution (IC#27). Winter, p. 52ff. Reprinted at
http://www.context.org/ICLIB/IC27/Orr.htm

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
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