“There is No Life Without Water”: Voices from Iraq’s Dying Marshes
Al-Chibayish, Iraq — At dawn, the wind stirs the tall reeds along the edges of the Al-Chibayish marshes. In a narrow mash’hoof — a traditional canoe that has glided through these waters since the days of ancient Sumer — Qaysar rows silently, the water barely rippling beneath him. He has spent nearly two decades navigating this labyrinth of wetlands in southern Iraq, but today the canals are shrinking, the fish are gone, and the reeds grow brown and brittle.
“If there is water, there is life, and all sorts of income resources,” Qaysar says, eyes on the horizon. “But now, we don’t even have enough fish to survive.”
Qaysar, 33, is one of thousands of Marsh Arabs—descendants of one of the world’s oldest civilizations—whose lives are inextricably tied to this once-verdant region in the Dhi Qar governorate. The marshes once spanned over 20,000 square kilometres—they are now barely half that size. Years of upstream damming along the Tigris and Euphrates, initiated by Saddam Hussein in the 1990s, combined with climate change-induced drought, have pushed the ecosystem to the brink.
The Disappearing Way of Life
The consequences ripple far beyond the loss of natural beauty. For generations, the marshes have provided food, grazing for livestock, and clean water. Now, with salinity rising and water receding, life is vanishing. “This region doesn’t have any future,” Qaysar says, matter-of-factly.
He sacrificed his own education to support his siblings and now struggles to support his own family. Every morning at 4 AM, he registers for a local “tourist raffle” to take visitors through the dying wetlands — a far cry from the days when fishing alone could sustain a family. “We take people on tours because the fish are gone, the livestock are sick or dead, and we have no other choice.”
Just a few kilometres away, Sajad sits by his modest reed house, watching the marshes flicker in the midday light. He is only 18, but hardship has aged him. “There’s a disease that has affected our livestock,” he says. “I lost seven of my animals.” The family once sold dairy products, but now even getting them to market requires paddling three miles in a wooden boat—he can’t afford a motor.
When asked about his dreams, he chuckles bitterly. “What wish?” As if hope were something for other people.
Women Holding the Line
Further north in Muzeraa village, Sabiha, a farmer in her fifties, pours two cups of coffee beneath the shade of her jujube trees—what’s left of them. “We are farmers and we farm,” she says. “But you can see the condition—we’ve been left on our own. No one has ever come to help or check our situation. Only CARE did.”
She is one of the region’s few women farmers to have spoken publicly about the crisis. Invited to a climate panel in Basra, she stood alongside male counterparts, voicing the concerns of those too often overlooked. “I am a fighter,” she says. Her husband, currently unemployed, supports her work with livestock and crops. But even the jujube trees, once a source of pride and profit, are dying. “We used to grow okra, jujube, tomatoes… But for the past five years, the salt in the water has increased so much, nothing grows anymore.”
Like Sabiha, Khadija also mourns the land. Now 57, she clings to the fading traditions she learned after marrying at 17. Her farm, a short walk from her home, is dotted with struggling date palms and salt-stressed vegetables. Yet she tends to her cow with the same love and routine she’s followed for decades.
“There is nothing more important than the water,” she says. “When there is no water, there is no life.”
Her granddaughter clings to her as she speaks. The connection between generations is tangible—but so is the fear that the traditions passed down may not survive the coming decades.
A Lifeline for a Collapsing Ecosystem
The hardships of families like Qaysar’s, Sajad’s, Sabiha’s, and Khadija’s are no longer isolated incidents—they are part of a growing humanitarian crisis. The once-thriving marshlands are now emblematic of Iraq’s broader environmental collapse.
In response, CARE Iraq, in partnership with the Aid Gate Organization and Tearfund, is working to reverse the decline. The joint climate-resilience program focuses on supporting 100 women farmers with sustainable agricultural practices, climate adaptation techniques, and financial literacy. The goal is not just survival—but renewal.
“We learned new things in the training,” Sabiha says. “But the problem is, we can’t afford to implement them.”
The support CARE offers is critical, but it competes with a staggering array of challenges: outdated infrastructure, rising salinity, erratic rainfall, and a lack of government support.
Community leaders confirm what these families already live every day. “We had around 70 animals. All of them died because the water is toxic,” one tribal leader in Al-Chibayish said. Another noted how once-abundant exports of fish and dairy have now given way to displacement and despair.
“The marshes are marshes because of the water,” said a local sheikh. “But it is being lost because of the drought.”
The Cost of Inaction
The numbers are sobering. As of March 2023, over 12,000 families have been displaced across Iraq due to drought. And those who remain are forced to make impossible choices—sell their livestock, skip meals, leave school, or migrate.
In the past, these marshes were Iraq’s cradle of civilization. Today, they are a battleground between climate change and human endurance.
“This initiative is rooted in the belief that the most effective climate solutions happen when communities lead their own,” Sihem Attalah, CARE Iraq’s climate change adaptation specialist, says. “Climate-smart agriculture isn’t just for big agribusiness. It’s also for smallholder farmers who know their land best. And when women take the lead in this work, the benefits reach entire communities.
Back in his boat, Qaysar looks out over what used to be a vibrant lagoon now reduced to patches of brackish water and cracked earth.
“I will never teach my children to work in the marshes,” he says. “They are going to school. They will finish their studies.”
In this land of reeds and resistance, the marshes may be dying, but the will to survive is not.