A MARTÍNEZ, HOST:
In the marshes of southern Iraq, one of the world's oldest ways of life is under threat. Years of drought decimated the buffalo herds that people have depended on since the dawn of history. Over the last year, rain has revived some marshlands, but there's just not enough to ward off other threats. NPR's Jane Arraf and Fatima Al-Kassab bring us this report from Iraq.
(SOUNDBITE OF BUFFALO GROANING)
JANE ARRAF, BYLINE: It's just after sunrise in Iraq's marshes, about 50 miles from the ancient site of Ur. There are water buffalo wading in the shallow water. We're in a long, narrow boat called a mashuf, the same design used for thousands of years.
(SOUNDBITE OF BIRDS TWEETING)
ARRAF: Birds here include a few migratory species still passing through. Even after years of drought, there's incredible biodiversity here.
FATIMA AL-KASSAB, BYLINE: Wow. Oh, my God.
ARRAF: There are just, like, five or six of them, little ones. But wild boars just swam across and darted into the reeds.
It was a mother and her piglets, gone in a flash. Our guide, Jassim Al-Asadi, the co-founder of the environmental organization Nature Iraq, points out a white egret.
JASSIM AL-ASADI: You see the buffalo? With a bird - and there is a bird on the buffalo. You see?
ARRAF: Saddam Hussein drained the marshes in the 1990s after an uprising in southern Iraq. Asadi was born in the marshes, literally in a boat. When the U.S. toppled Saddam in 2003, Asadi - an engineer - played a key role in restoring them. His work almost cost him his life. Three years ago, he was kidnapped and tortured by an Iran-backed militia in Iraq. It accused him of being an Israeli spy because he met with foreign journalists. When he was freed, he insisted on returning to his work there.
(SOUNDBITE OF BUFFALO GROANING)
AL-ASADI: (Speaking Arabic).
ARRAF: The marshes are his life.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: (Speaking Arabic).
AL-ASADI: (Speaking Arabic).
ARRAF: "How's the water?" Asadi asks a herder milking one of the water buffalo.
MUAMMEL RAAD WAHEED: (Speaking Arabic).
ARRAF: Muammel Raad Waheed (ph) says he's getting twice as much milk from each one as he was during the drought, when there were dead water buffalo floating in the canals. Families then deserted the marshes, taking their remaining animals to places with more water. Now some of those families are starting to come back. But the future of the marshlands depends partly on the Iraqi government's water policies and those of Turkey and Syria, which share the rivers.
AL-ASADI: (Speaking Arabic).
ARRAF: Fishermen tell Asadi they're still suffering.
AL-ASADI: There is only a kind, not - a bad kind of the fish. And no one eat it here. It is not tasty and smaller and...
ARRAF: Those are sea fish that can live in more saline and polluted water. Without water treatment plants, towns here dump sewage directly into the marshes. On land, Asadi shows us Nature Iraq's solution.
AL-ASADI: This is the pumping station - floating pumping station. And the waters come here from Tigris to this pool.
ARRAF: A pond where reeds and other plants remove toxins from dirty water.
(CROSSTALK)
ARRAF: A few miles away, Asadi takes us to a village where workers are erecting a reed guesthouse, turning long stalks of the tied reeds into the distinctive arches. It's the same design found in ancient Sumerian stone carvings. After straining to lift the reed foundations, the workers erupt in celebration.
UNIDENTIFIED WORKERS: (Singing in Arabic).
ARRAF: Life is much harder these days. But people here are keeping alive traditions that have survived thousands of years while they wait for the marshes to recover.
UNIDENTIFIED WORKERS: (Singing in Arabic).
ARRAF: Jane Arraf, NPR News, in the central marshes of southern Iraq.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC) Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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