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"Yesterday a forest, today apartments"... Influential people and "buildings" destroy the forests and mountains of Kurdistan
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Baghdad today - Sulaymaniyah
High-storey buildings built on the remains of trees and forests in Sulaymaniyah... But what is the solution in light of the urgent need for housing?
“ They turned the garden into concrete cubes!” Sarah Karim (34 years old) said with great sadness, as she pointed to an area in the Sarganar resort (5 km west of Sulaymaniyah), which was a public park that she used to frequent during her childhood, but now it is a residential complex .
“ I brought my two young children here for a walk, both in elementary school, and I thought the place would be the same as I remembered it, full of trees and people escaping the city to a place where they could breathe fresh air,” but instead she found buildings competing in height .
The Sarjnar area is famous for being a haven for families coming to it for outings, whether from the city of Sulaymaniyah or even the rest of the Iraqi provinces. Its sprawling gardens are famous for being a stage for popular celebrations, the most important of which is the Nowruz holiday, which falls in the spring of every year .
Sarah notes that it is not only Sarjnar that has lost its green spaces, but Sulaymaniyah in general, “You will only find residential buildings, some of which are 30 stories high .”
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A pleasant note, which applies to the Kurdistan Region in general, not Sulaymaniyah. The three provinces have witnessed a wide urban movement and a great openness towards vertical residential construction, in competition with foreign investment companies, Turkish and Iranian, which built thousands of residential units with different specifications and prices .
Multi-class building
During the author’s tour of a number of vertical residential complexes in the three governorates of the region, he found that they are divided into two main categories: the first is low-cost, designated for low-income people, with prices ranging between 45-60 thousand US dollars. These projects generally lack the safety conditions and standards that protect them. From natural disasters such as earthquakes .
The second category is characterised by medium to high specifications, and its prices start from 80 thousand dollars and go up to 300 thousand US dollars. Some of them lack international safety standards and conditions, while the other part of them has solid international specifications that take into account all safety conditions and protection from earthquakes and other disasters, according to specialists .
It was also found that the Investment Authority in the region grants some housing projects building permits based on the investment law in effect in the region, and that the number of housing units built according to this method is estimated at more than 220 thousand housing units of various shapes and sizes .
At a time when the municipal departments grant licenses to build projects to another department, as their number reaches more than 100,000 housing units, according to the head of the Kurdistan Investors Union, Yassin Mahmoud Rashid. Which also confirms that there are more than 450 large, medium and small commercial buildings in the region .
Spaces recede
In exchange for building permits, many residents of the Kurdistan region, known for the beauty of its mountainous nature, complain about the shrinkage of green spaces and its direct impact on public health .
Anwar Jabbar (45 years old) from the Ra’aya area in Sulaymaniyah says that the city’s environment and air were clean, “and we did not hear about the diseases of shortness of breath, pneumonia, asthma, and others, as we do today .”
Shortly before that, Anwar had bought a bag of medicines for 145 thousand dinars (approximately $100) that had been prescribed to him by a chest specialist, after he diagnosed his coughing spells with severe pneumonia .
He holds residential complexes and industrial projects responsible for the pollution in the water and air, because, as he believes, they have encroached on green spaces, causing “diseases and epidemics to spread,” he says adamantly .
Rejection of reconstruction projects resonates in society .
In May 2024, the authorities angered the community following reports about an investment company digging and uprooting a large part of the foot of Mount (Kweiza) in Sulaymaniyah in preparation for building a vertical residential complex there .
The discontent increased with the cutting down of the Koiza trees during the same month, which some considered to be fabricated in order to strip the area of its vegetation and exploit this by building more vertical residential complexes .
According to an official source in the Sulaymaniyah local government, who asked not to be named, paving just one road for one of the residential complexes near Mount Koizah resulted in the cutting down of about a thousand trees, including old trees .
“ These trees were like lungs through which the people of Salmaniya breathed fresh air .”
The number of residential units built near Mount Kweiza exceeded a thousand units, distributed into buildings, villas and houses, and the total area of these buildings is about 190 thousand square meters, according to the source .
He added, “Under the pretext of building another complex on an area of 23 dunams in the same area, large areas of citizens’ gardens and farms were destroyed, in addition to uprooting trees, some of which were more than four decades old .”
According to the source, investors are currently trying to obtain licenses to build other residential complexes in the same area, which is a popular symbol in Sulaymaniyah .
“ There is a media and public uproar now because of the residential complexes that are growing around the mountain .”
Halo Al-Qazzaz, Director General of the Studies and Information Department at the Kurdistan Investment Board, says that there are 69 housing projects in Sulaymaniyah licensed by the Investment Board, including 47 old projects that are still under construction on a total area of 6,515 dunums, and 22 new projects that obtained a work and construction license in 2023 .
He says that the 47 projects consist of “56,350 housing units, of which 25,414 have been completed, and 3,936 are still under construction .”
Al-Qazzaz confirms, “Work and construction permits were not granted for these projects until specific green spaces were installed in them according to the required specifications.” Pointing out that “according to available information, more than 13 percent of Sulaymaniyah’s area is green spaces .”
The problem is that residential complexes and villas are mainly on agricultural land, according to the diagnosis of Marouf Majeed, head of the “Ainde” environmental protection organization .
Commercial housing projects have repeatedly cut down and uprooted thousands of trees and reduced the area of agricultural land in the villages and countryside of the region, including Sulaymaniyah, over the past years .
According to the head of the organization, about 1.5 million dunams of land in Kurdistan are exposed to the dangers of fires and other harmful works, noting that in the fifties of the last century, Kurdistan had about 5 million dunams of forests and pastures, but the numbers have decreased by almost half .
Depletion of water storage
The environmental damage caused by the region’s booming vertical housing projects over the past two decades has “led to a significant drop in water levels,” says Ramadan Mohammed, a water policy expert, who cites another impact of commercial housing projects .
Muhammad says, “The urban expansion that is currently taking place without scientific planning greatly affects the groundwater and its nutrition and leads to a decrease in the groundwater storage in the region, which leads to drought and a decrease in seasonal river levels, due to the lack of nutrition conditions .”
He points out that construction in general has become “chaotic and random,” as he puts it, and that the danger of horizontal construction lies in the asphalt. He explains: “Seasonal rains cause flash floods, so water levels rise and become a serious threat to lives and property, while in the past, before all this construction, water would seep into the soil without causing any damage .”
The expert mentions the negatives observed in vertical residential complexes: “They do not have gardens or garages. Each person is supposed to have at least 4 meters of gardens, multiplied by the number of residents, to create green spaces and clean air .”
He added, “The residential complexes monopolize the water shares in the area, and since they are affiliated with influential people, they cut off the water from the neighboring villages whose residents are deprived of water, and this is a grave mistake .”
“ Without a doubt, all residential complexes are supposed to have water quotas, but vertical residential complexes have a small area, but their residential density is high, and they do not have green spaces, so groundwater is used unfairly .”
He warns that expanding reliance on groundwater will inevitably affect “the first layer carrying water, and lead to a decrease in the dynamic water level, and the extent of the danger depends on the type of basin, the nature of the population density, and the type of use. The continuation of this phenomenon does not bode well, and it is very wrong to rely to this extent on well water that is supposed to be kept as a fixed reserve .”
In addition to the increase in drilling wells to supply residential complexes with wells, specialists point out another potential harm, which is: “the occurrence of future ground disturbance, which increases the chances of seismic ground movements such as earthquakes occurring .”
The decrease in the supply of drinking water to citizens in the region in general, which is approximately only two hours for every three days or more in the city of Sulaymaniyah, prompted many citizens to dig wells inside their homes during the past years, before the government authorities issued a decision to ban drilling, but the decision came too late. Many wells had already been dug .
A joint study by the Stop monitoring organization and the Kurdish media network Molek News revealed in 2022 that “water waste in the region amounts to 850,000 cubic meters out of a total daily production of three million and 126 thousand cubic meters, at a cost of up to 340 million dinars (about 231 thousand US dollars) .”
“The number of wells in Erbil alone is 1,240, in addition to the drilling of 1,200 wells for residential and investment projects,” says Stop Organization member Farman Rashad. “The depth of wells in general in 2000 did not exceed 250 meters, but today, accessing water requires drilling to a depth of 650 meters .”
Regarding the damage caused by residential complexes and projects and their impact on the decline in water quantities, Rashad says: “Residential and urban projects over the past decade had a significant impact on the decline in groundwater by about 100 percent and 50 percent of the water produced .”
air pollution
Ahmed Daban, a former member of the Kurdistan Regional Parliament for Sulaymaniyah Governorate, acknowledges the increase in the construction of residential complexes, and says, “The randomness of determining their construction sites affects the city’s environment and aesthetics .”
He explains, “It leads to visual pollution, because it is built without planning and study, in separate places and with different areas, and it contributes to polluting the environment by causing the reduction of green spaces and the destruction of trees,” giving the example of complexes that are built in the mountains, “where old trees in hundreds of dunams are cut down.” Residential buildings are being built in their place .”
He says that the ownership of these projects and complexes actually belongs to influential officials, “and no one can hold them accountable for violating the environment and harming it, as stipulated in the Environmental Protection Law .”
The former MP warns against the continuation of random construction because “it means that Sulaymaniyah and its mountains will be exposed to desertification in the future,” and he adds in protest, “The dust storms do not stop in Sulaymaniyah, which is about 3,000 meters above sea level. All of this is due to the destruction of trees and the absence of green spaces, and the environment is the first victim of the greed of the corrupt .”
The number of private diesel-powered generators, which number more than 6,000 within residential neighborhoods in the region, is one of the largest sources of pollution there, operating for at least 12 hours per day during the winter and summer seasons .
With each generator consuming more than 150 liters per operating hour, the generators need more than 11 million liters per day to cover their needs, in addition to the requirements of laboratories and some other facilities. This quantity is generally produced by unofficial refineries, which also causes significant air pollution. Soil and environment at different levels .
Abdul Mutalib Rifat Sarhat, an expert in environmental sciences and a lecturer at Karmian University, says, “The expansion of the urban area at the expense of green spaces has contributed greatly to environmental pollution and the temperature reaching its highest levels .”
Reasoning that urban formations, including asphalt, concrete and other building materials, have a high ability to absorb and reflect heat .
The expansion of urban areas has contributed to increasing global warming, which has resulted in the “heat island phenomenon,” which is a phenomenon given to any area whose temperature is relatively higher than the surrounding areas due to human intervention, and which results in environmental, economic, and health impacts. According to the academic, I was dismissed .
With the decline of vegetation cover due to encroachment of concrete, air pollution, according to the expert, causes a rise in the number of chronic respiratory diseases, in addition to cancerous diseases, which “began to double year after year” in Kurdistan, whose population is estimated at 6 million people .
Statistics from the Ministry of Health in the region indicate that more than 8,000 cases of cancer were recorded in 2021, 9,061 cases in 2022, while 9,911 new cases were diagnosed in 2023 .
In general, the ministry recorded 81,062 cases from 2012 to 2023, and the situation is not much different with respiratory distress or chronic diseases in general due to environmental pollution, according to cadres in medical institutions and organizations concerned with the environment .
Dr., a consultant physician specializing in chest, lung and respiratory diseases and teaching at Sulaymaniyah University, says: Kamran Qardaghi said, “The increase in dust in the air, as well as the decrease in the level of green spaces, increases respiratory diseases among citizens and places patients in very critical situations.” He explains, “Patients who suffer from difficulty breathing need fresh air at a very high rate .”
Law to protect the environment, but !
In 2008, the Kurdistan Region enacted Law No. (8) on the protection and improvement of the environment, which included many articles that legal experts describe as positive for the benefit of the environment .
In Article 12 of the law, every natural or legal person, public, private, or mixed, or any entity that practices an activity that affects the environment, is obligated to prepare a study to assess the environmental impact of the activities and projects that he will establish and submit it to the Ministry of Environment to take the appropriate decision regarding it .
The study should include an estimate of the positive and negative impacts of the project, facility or factory on the environment, in addition to the proposed means to avoid and treat the causes of pollution in a way that achieves compliance with environmental instructions and controls while reducing, recycling or reusing waste, and estimating the costs of the environmental benefits and damages caused by the project .
Article 21 of the law holds responsible anyone who causes damage to the environment through his personal action or negligence, or through the action of those under his care, supervision or control, or through his followers, or his violation of laws, regulations and instructions, and obligates him to compensate, remove the damage and restore the situation to what it was before the damage occurred, within the specified period and under the established conditions .
The law also stipulates in Article 28 the prohibition of any activity that causes the cutting, uprooting, or removal of trees, shrubs, plants, and wild and aquatic herbs on public property, and the prohibition of any action, behavior, or activity that leads to damage or prejudice to the natural, aesthetic, or heritage dimensions of natural reserves, gardens, or public parks. .
The law imposes penalties, including imprisonment for a period of not less than one month or a fine of not less than (150,000) one hundred and fifty thousand dinars (114 dollars) and not more than (200) million dinars (252 thousand dollars) or both penalties, and the penalty is doubled every time it is repeated. In which the violation is committed .
But the law is not applied .
Muhammad Younis, a lawyer interested in environmental issues, asks, “What is the benefit of a law to protect the environment when the environment is violated on a daily basis?” He stresses the need to raise the ceiling of penalties imposed on those who trespass on the environment “without discrimination between one person or another, one party or another .”
He stated that simple imprisonment and a fine do not produce the required deterrence. “It should become severe imprisonment at the very least, or even imprisonment if the damage is severe.” Then he pointed out that the damage may not be direct, and explains: “The results of cutting trees and reducing vegetation may not be apparent.” In the same place, but it appears clearly in hospitals!” In reference to the high rates of infection with various diseases due to pollution and changes in air quality .
Solution
Abdul Rahman Siddiq, head of the Kurdistan Environmental Protection and Improvement Authority, describes the region’s battle for its environment as “very difficult” and different from other countries .
“We do not have green space at the global level, but we basically have 12.4 percent for forests, and 19.5 percent for vegetables in the city, ” he said in a press statement.
During the previous years, he said, the Authority granted the necessary licenses to about eight thousand projects, and rejected 450 projects due to their lack of environmental conditions. The Authority also conducted inspections in the past three years for more than 14 thousand projects .
“ The green spaces in the region are not at the global level, as the cities of Kurdistan are expanding horizontally and not vertically, as our architecture and culture are horizontal and not vertical, which increases the amount of concrete materials and asphalt paved roads .”
The writer and environmental activist Salam Adel confirms his understanding that population growth certainly imposes urban expansion in return, but “this must be accompanied by continuous campaigns to preserve or expand the plant cover, especially since the Kurdistan region is characterized by mountainous areas where snow accumulates and rainfall rates are high, so the continuous planting of trees will be one hundred percent successful .”
Adel believes that it is necessary to spread environmental awareness among citizens in general, because they are, in one way or another, contributing to pollution, whether through the amounts of waste disposed of daily, or the exhaust of gasoline cars, or by using fires for purposes during holidays and causing fires .
In order to eliminate these pollutants or at least control them to prevent the spread of their damage to the environment, academic Abdul Muttalib stresses the need to tighten control over sources of pollution, whether water pollution from sewage, factory and hospital water, oil and municipal waste, or air pollution resulting from transportation, generators and factories .
Abdul Muttalib asserts that the solution now is to implement the laws firmly and forcefully, prevent the continuation of environmental pollutants, establish new water stations that are compatible with urban expansion and increasing population density, and work to pay attention to afforestation, expand the vegetation cover, and spread the culture of environmental and health awareness .
The investigation was conducted under the supervision of the “Nirij” network and with the support of Internews as part of the Environmental Journalism Project.
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