A group of Iraqi Americans in California have lobbied for thedevelopment of a new project to restore what is regarded bybiblical scholars as the legendary Garden of Eden.
The Eden Again project, which recently received 1.2 millionEuros from Italy, is aimed at restoring the rich and fertilemarshlands of Southern Iraq and assisting the marsh people, whowere desolated after Saddam literally drained them of their mainsource of sustenance.
Saddam's draining of the marshlands, in what the United Nationscalled "One of the world's greatest environmental disasters," hasled to the desiccation of more than 90 percent of the marshlandsthrough up-land and down-land damming.
Azzam Alwash, an Iraqi-American and director of the Eden AgainProject, said the draining, a project Saddam undertook after theGulf War uprising against him, is a reflection of the terror underwhich Iraqi people lived.
"The destruction of the marshes is tangible proof of the extentof the effort to punish the opposition," he said on his Web site."It took a Herculean effort to divert the waters away from themarshes. Right in the middle of sanctions -- to spend that kind ofmoney to destroy the area of the marshes -- it's incredible,mind-boggling."
Alwash, whose father was the district irrigation engineer of themarshlands, spent his childhood on the marshes with the marshpeople of Iraq.
"I have very vivid memories of the marshes -- like putteringaround in a boat with my father," he said. "I remember the watersand treading through the reed beds."
The marshes of Iraq nurtured the culture and civilization of theSumerians, who created the first alphabet and earliest epics, saidSuzie Alwash, senior project adviser of Eden Again, in an interviewwith The Helmsman. A marine geologist and wife of Azzam Alwash, shecoordinates the Eden Again Project through her California homewhile Azzam remains in the marshlands of Iraq.
Although environmental concern fuels many people to assist withProject Eden, the rejuvenation of the marshlands is more integralto the psychology of the Iraqis, Alwash said.
"The marshes are important because if they can be rejuvenated,it would be tangible proof for all of Iraq of how we can improvelife in there," he said.
Despite the support of the marsh people and the Italians, theAlwashes and other members of the Eden Again Project haveencountered a number of groups who oppose the marshrestoration.
"It's mostly petroleum companies and the United States," saidSuzie. "The oil companies want to drill in the land, and the U.S.would rather the marsh people remain dependent on U.S. aide andbusiness, in my opinion."
Jonathan Greenham (agricultural officer of internal developmentin Iraq) referred to the restoration of the marsh culture as a"forlorn hope," Suzie said. "That is the most arrogant and ignorantremark -- the oldest and most ancient culture in the world is deadafter just one decade? It is so far from the truth," she said.
