Since the presentation of the Master Plan in September 2006 (now available to the public at http://www.newedengroup.org/), Nature Iraq is working on a new list of projects to follow-up on the recommendations and findings of the Master Plan.  Several meetings have taken place since September 2006 with Iraqi Ministries, local stakeholders, and donors (Amman, Jordan, Basrah and Sulaymaniyah, Iraq & Paris, France) to discuss the path forward.

Nature Iraq continues its role as an environmental research organization, by conducting, in support of the Iraqi Ministries, much of the monitoring and ground-truthing activities in southern Iraq and has begun, in cooperation with Universities and the Ministry of Environment of Kurdistan, a biodiversity survey in Kurdistan in Northern Iraq.

New potential projects are being discussed with stakeholders and several projects are continuing.  These include:

- Continued development of the Pilot Green Village Project, hydrological structures in the marshland areas, urban planning projects, water budget project, and the feasibility study of a Marshland National Park in the Central Marsh

- Constructed Wetlands Research Project on the Main Outfall Drain

- Additional Capacity Building programs

- Publication of an Iraqi Bird Guide for Children (Due in summer 2007)

- And a new monitoring effort focused on habitat mapping

Nature Iraq will continue to work collaboratively with the Iraqi government ministries, non-governmental organizations and Canadian, Italian and other donor organizations on these and future projects to improve, restore and protect Iraq’s environment.

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Nature Iraq Monitoring Program

Under funding from the Canada-Iraq Marshland Initiative (CIMI) and with additional support from the Italian Ministry of Environment & Territory (IMET), Nature Iraq has continued its extensive monitoring program and has extended this program into the Kurdish Region (starting Winter 07).

The Nature Iraq Monitoring Program includes monthly studies, started in October of 2005 under the CIMI project, of the three main marshes to monitor the following biological and physical variables:

Water quality,

Macrophytes,

Phytoplankton,

Zooplankton,

Macrobenthos,

Fish and

Paleoecology

In addition, under the Key Biodiversity Areas (KBA) Project, which started in January of 2005, we are conducting seasonal (winter and summer) surveys covering 62 survey sites.  These sites are located in seven marshes within six governorates of southern Iraq.  All of the biological and physical variables listed above (except for paleoecology) are investigated and in addition, bird surveys are included.  These seasonal studies have been extended to the Kurdish regions under funding from the Italian Ministry of Environment, Land & Sea and the first survey there visited 30 potential KBA sites and performed extensive water quality monitoring for Darbandikhan and Dokan Reservoirs.

Two projects started in May of 2006.  One, the Water Budget project looks at the inputs and outlets of rivers in the marshes on a monthly basis to determine the water budget of the marshes.  The second is the Buffalo Project that is a census study on the number and distribution of water buffalos in the marshes of the three southern governorates of Iraq (See Water Buffalo Report, Page 3).  By the end of 2006, the study covered all the marshes in Thi Qar governorate and a large area of the marshes of Missan governorate.

In July of 2006, monthly trips also began for the Shatt Al Arab Project to study the water of reflooded marshes flowing into the Shatt Al Arab, and the effect of re-flooding the marshes on waters of the river.

In October and November 2006, a series of meetings, workshops and trainings were held in Syria for the research groups working in Iraq on these various monitoring efforts.  Over 35 Iraqis from Nature Iraq, the Universities of Basrah, Baghdad, Thi Qar, Babylon, & Sulimaniyah attended this series, which was funded by CIMI and IMELS and organized with the assistance of Birdlife International.  The training courses were held in Lake Asad, Al Rekka, Syria and researchers from Aleppo University in Syria participated.

At the end of the workshops, it was recommended that the monitoring and survey program in Iraq be extended for an additional twelve months.  Several new projects were also proposed.

The full report of these activities can be found on Nature Iraq’s Eden Again Project Website (www.edenagain.org) under Marshland Information->Reports.

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Status on active projects under Phase 2 of the Master Plan

Over the past summer, under the New Eden Team Project and with funding from the Italian Ministry of Environment, Land & Sea, Nature Iraq placed ads in Italian newspapers to begin a bidding process on four tenders for work in Iraq.  These included the following projects:

1. Installing new hydrology-meteorology monitoring stations along the Tigris & Euphrates River basin to monitor water levels and collect information on basic water parameters such as salinity, temperature, etc. for the Ministry of Water Resources.

2. Building of three reverse osmosis units to clean and desalinate water for communities in the marshland areas.  This is a project with the Ministry of Municipalities and Public Works.

3. Purchase and installation of a complete water quality lab for the Iraqi Ministry of Environment.

4. Purchase and installation of the hardware and software for a network of computer stations within the three Iraqi Ministries that have major involvement in the Marshlands (Environment, Water Resources, and Municipalities & Public Works) so that they can analyze and share information collected in the Marshland region.

The first project has already been awarded  for the installation of the hydrology-meteorology stations and work has commenced.  We are awaiting the arrival of 25 more stations and a master station with training scheduled in Italy in the early part of May.

The RO Units are on order and the platforms have been prepared and are awaiting the arrival of the equipment from Italy for installation and activation.

The lab equipment project has been re-submitted to attract additional bidders but we hope to accomplish the procurement and installation of the equipment by summer 2007.

The fourth project, part of the New Eden Marshland Information System, is under contract negotiations at this time.

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