Project Description

For the last 25 years, botanical research in Iraq has been at a standstill due to a lack of investment, training and support. Taxonomists in Iraq generally lack floristic skills and capacity, as well as vital resources. Libraries and herbaria have been neglected and in some cases badly damaged. Biodiversity research in Iraq is impeded by the lack of an up-to-date completed flora covering the whole country. 

The New Flora of Iraq project has therefore been initiated in order to rebuild botanical expertise in Iraq and provide the necessary resources for scientific research. The project will have a considerable impact across a number of disciplines and will contribute substantially in the creation of a new generation of botanists.

Project Description

The Key Biodiversity Areas (KBA) Program is conducted by Nature Iraq in cooperation with the Iraqi Ministry of Environment (IMoE) with support from the Italian Ministry of Environment, Land & Sea (IMELS). It includes some of the most comprehensive biological surveys to-date throughout southern, central/westerns and Kurdistan, Northern Iraq.  Surveys conducted primarily every winter and summer since 2005 have focused on collecting data on Birds, Plants, Mammals, Fish, benthic invertebrates, plankton, as well as water quality and soil parameters.  The goal of the project is to identify sites that are globally, regionally, or nationally important for their biological diversity and advocate for their protection.

Project Update

Nature Iraq and the IMoE have released a number of reports on the yearly findings of the project.  And in 2010, Nature Iraq utilized a lot of the KBA information to help the IMoE develop its first National Report to the Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity. As we enter 2011, the KBA Program begins its 7^th year and currently an intensive effort is underway to review all data since the start of the project and publish a complete inventory of KBA sites that have been visited so far as well as expand the effort into un-surveyed areas of the country.  New reports are also available from Nature Iraq for the 2010 survey year.  Check out the latest project status HERE

Project Description

Nature Iraq began fact-finding surveys for the critically endangered Sociable Lapwings Vanellus gregarius  in areas of western Iraq in 2009. The Sociable Lapwing is a victims of unsustainable exploitation and habitat loss caused by humans. This species has had a serious drop in its global population bringing this bird to the brink of extinction. The principal aim of the program, which is funded by the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds in the UK, is the conservation of this endangered species and its habitats in Iraq. In fall and spring, the NI team visits sites to check for birds and deliver educational materials on the bird to locals, hunters, and falconers. Contacts with tribes is also made in addition to developing relationships and coodination with Iraqi Hunters and Falconers Associations to begin to raise awareness about the threats to this species. This project is also an opportunity to demonstrate the needs for reviewing/activating the hunting legislation in Iraq, and for lobbying to include Iraq in AEWA.

Project Update

In 2009, Nature Iraq participated in a global workshop on the Sociable Lapwing in Kazakhstan to develop an action plan for the conservation of this species. Surveys in Iraq for this bird began in the fall of 2009 and have been done every spring and fall since that time.  Unfortunately, the field team has not seen the birds directly in the field in Iraq but satellite-tagged birds have been tracked to western Iraq near Tharthaar Lake in 2010 and hundreds of posters and flyers about this bird have been distributed in the area.  See the latest update on this program HERE. 

Sociable Lapwing Project Press Release