GAINESVILLE, Fla., Feb. 28 (UPI) -- A group of scientists are laying the groundwork for restoring a huge wetland systematically destroyed by Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein should U.S. troops successfully invade Iraq.
The project is called "Eden Again" because of the belief by many biblical scholars the Bible's "Garden of Eden" was located in the region.
Professor Thomas Crisman, a wetlands expert at the University of Florida, is a member of the task force of about 10 scientists who met in early February in Los Angeles.
"We starting off with the basics," Crisman said. "We're trying to figure out, 'Can we restore the ecology, and can we restore the culture of the people who lived in these marshes?'"
The marsh once covered nearly 3,500 square miles between the Tigris and the Euphrates Rivers in southern Iraq. It was home to numerous rare or endangered birds and other wildlife, and provided important food and nursery grounds for shrimp and fish in the Persian Gulf.
In the early 1990s, Saddam's engineers built huge channels and canals to drain the area, Crisman said.
The digging was billed as an agricultural project. But Crisman said the real goal was to put down rebellion among its inhabitants, a people known as "marsh Arabs," whose culture is thousands of years old.
The marsh has been reduced to as little as 500 square miles, and the 500,000 marsh Arabs have scattered around Iraq, Iran and other neighboring countries.
Crisman said the goal of the project is both to restore the marsh ecosystem and to make it attractive for marsh Arabs to return to their homeland.
"We're looking at it from the scientific side, but the challenge is to restore both the ecology and the culture," he said.
Crisman, a specialist in the ecology, management and conservation of wetlands in the subtropics and tropics, was selected for the task force partly because of his work restoring wetlands in Greece and elsewhere in the Mediterranean region.
He collaborated in that work with George Zalidis, a professor of soil and water resources at Aristotle University in Greece. Zalidis is also a member of the "Eden Again" technical advisory board.
The Iraq Foundation, an Iraqi opposition group based in the United States, oversees the project.
It has received an initial grant from the U.S. State Department. More funding will be sought if the project goes forward.
