The Iraqi Prime Minister unveiled on Sunday March 12 in Basra (south) a campaign aimed at planting five million trees to counter galloping desertification and sandstorms in an Iraq hit by climate change.
"
Illustrated by rising temperatures, declining rainfall, increased dust storms, climate change (...) threatens food, health and environmental security," said Mohamed Chia al-Soudani
.
He announced “
the launch of a major reforestation initiative, to plant five million trees and palm trees in all governorates
”.
"
More than seven million citizens have been affected, their regions have suffered from drought, they have been displaced by the hundreds of thousands after losing their livelihoods dependent on agriculture and fishing", lamented the head of
the government in a speech reported by his services.
Aerial view of a bank of the Shatt Al-Arab river in the port city of Basra, in southern Iraq, on March 21, 2022 HUSSEIN FALEH / AFP
Mohamed Chia al-Soudani was speaking at the opening of a conference devoted to the climate, organized Sunday and Monday in the presence of ambassadors and UN officials in Basra, a large port city in the south.
In the spring of 2022, Iraq was swept by a dozen sand or dust storms, causing breathing difficulties in thousands of people and forcing the authorities to temporarily close schools and administrations and suspend air traffic.
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Among the measures recommended to combat this phenomenon, the authorities cite the creation of green belts around cities to act as windbreaks, in a country where 39% of the territory is affected by desertification.
Iraq was once dubbed "
the country of 30 million palm trees
," but decades of conflict and failed public policy have ravaged this national symbol.
Lush palm groves and green belts that protected large cities like Baghdad or Kerbala (center) have been abandoned or replaced by concrete neighborhoods.
Iraq is also suffering from an alarming drop in the level of its two mythical rivers, the Tigris and the Euphrates.
In addition to climate change, this drop in flow is mainly due to the construction of dams upstream, in neighboring Turkey and Iran, deplore the authorities.
On Sunday, Mohamed Chia al-Soudani undertook to organize “
soon
” in Baghdad a regional conference to “
strengthen cooperation and the exchange of expertise
” in the face of climate change.
In 2021 Saudi Arabia, Iraq's big neighbor, unveiled a green initiative aimed at planting ten billion trees on its territory in a decade and 40 billion additional trees by collaborating with other Arab countries.
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