In the film Climate Crimes, Azzam Alwash – conservation visionary and founder of the Iraqi NGO “Nature Iraq” – spoke about the consequences of dams for the Mesopotamian Marshes in Iraq. For his efforts in restoring these Marshes he has now won this year’s Goldman Prize – at US$ 150,000 the worldwide best-endowed award for conservationists.

Video about A- Alwash and  Goldman prize:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=JPg2t9keCDs

Near the city of Basra in Iraq, where the Tigris unites with the Euphrates River, one of the most momentous cultural and natural landscapes is located: the Mesopotamian Swamps. Here, some 6,000 years ago, the Sumerians developed writing, the first legal system, and the basic methods of agriculture. Today, the swampland is home to the Sumerians’ descendants, the Marsh Arabs. Like their ancestors, they build their houses of reeds, catch fish, and keep water buffalos.

However, as a revenge for the Marsh Arabs’ alliance with the Americans during the first Gulf War, Saddam Hussein ordered the marshes to be dried out in the 1990s.  As a result, 94 per cent of the swampland turned into desert. After Saddam’s capture in 2003, Iraq’s biggest success story was written: the return of the water. Azzam Alwash played a vital role in this story. Today, 300,000 hectares of land are once again flooded. If it were up to Azzam Alwash, even more land would be flooded and the area would be declared a National Park.

But the prospects are looking grim. Dams in Turkey and Iran hold back water that is vital to the marshes. If the Illisu and other prospected dams are being built, big areas of the marshes will become a desert again. This is what Azzam Alwash and his team from Nature Iraq are fighting against.

“Azzam is one of these rare persons, who spread hope and demonstrate what can be achieved through vision and dedication. He helped turning a desert back into a green waterworld,” says Ulrich Eichelmann, head of the NGO Riverwatch.

Outlook: in mid-May a meeting between the Marsh Arabs from Mesopotamia and the Kayapo indigenous people from Xingu in Amazonia will be arranged. It will take place in Hasankeyf, the city at the Tigris River in Turkey that is to be drowned in the projected Ilisu reservoir.The goal of the meeting is to draw attention to the devastating consequences of dams. The Kayapo indigenous people are threatened by the Belo Monte Dam. Globally 5,000 mega dams are currently being built – that is more than ever before.

More info: http://www.goldmanprize.org