Iraq is losing its green spaces... Desertification is accelerating despite afforestation campaigns!

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[size=52]Iraq is losing its green spaces... Desertification is accelerating despite afforestation campaigns![/size]

[size=45]Iraq is witnessing a significant decrease in its green spaces despite ongoing efforts to launch afforestation campaigns, which poses an environmental threat that directly affects the country’s environmental and climatic balance. Desertification and drought rates have increased as a result of climate change, excessive use of agricultural land, and unregulated urban expansion.[/size]
[size=45]Despite the launch of governmental and community initiatives aimed at increasing green spaces, such as tree planting campaigns in cities and rural areas, these efforts face major challenges. The most prominent of these challenges is the lack of funding and weak infrastructure to support these projects in a sustainable manner. In addition, the water levels in major rivers such as the Tigris and Euphrates are declining, which affects the availability of water needed for irrigation.[/size]
[size=45]Environmental reports indicate that Iraq has lost a large part of its forests and cultivated areas in recent decades, as the rate of deforestation and desertification has increased due to multiple factors, including successive wars, in addition to environmental neglect. Poor urban planning has also contributed to the reduction of open spaces allocated for agriculture and afforestation within cities.[/size]
[size=45]Despite these challenges, calls continue to intensify afforestation campaigns and activate government environmental policies to enhance vegetation cover, as afforestation is seen as one of the main solutions to combat climate change and reduce the effects of desertification. However, achieving these goals requires greater coordination between the various stakeholders, in addition to comprehensive community awareness about the importance of preserving the environment and natural resources.[/size]
[size=45]Omar Abdul Latif, a member of the Green Iraq Observatory, said, “Green spaces have shrunk from about 50 to 17 percent due to climate change, most notably water scarcity, citizens’ lack of interest in agriculture, and rising temperatures, in addition to a clear failure to provide green spaces by citizens and responsible authorities.”[/size]
[size=45]He added, “Iraq needs green spaces, and providing green spaces takes from one to two years, so it must be started early because the future is terrifying in terms of climate change, especially with the rise in temperatures and pollution,” indicating that “this year, temperatures are notably rising abnormally, which requires reconsidering all plans and making green spaces the basis for revitalizing the atmosphere and mood of the Iraqi family.”[/size]
[size=45]It is worth noting that green spaces improve air quality, public health, entertainment and recreation, and they help reduce temperatures, absorb pollutants, protect against ultraviolet rays, reduce noise and feelings of depression.[/size]
[size=45]For his part, environmental and agricultural activist Falah Hassan says that “the absence of green spaces in cities is due to government policy and the conditions that Iraq witnessed after 2003, and that “in countries around the world there are laws that prevent cement from encroaching on green spaces.”[/size]
[size=45]He added, "Buildings retain heat in the absence of vegetation, so green spaces are an urgent need, not a luxury as some government departments and institutions see them."[/size]
[size=45]Hassan called on the Baghdad government, the Ministry of Agriculture and the relevant departments to pay attention to afforestation operations and increase green spaces, in addition to supporting civil initiatives and not relying on old forests, but rather working to create new forests and plant them with trees suitable for the country's current conditions.[/size]
[size=45]The Iraqi Ministry of Agriculture confirms that the country needs to plant more than 15 billion trees to secure a vegetation cover that will eliminate desertification, while specialists believe that reviving and rehabilitating forests and planting areas with these numbers of trees in the coming years can restore some of the clean air to the Iraqi atmosphere, after it was polluted by harmful waste from exhausts, factories, and others.[/size]
[size=45]Iraq ranks second among the most polluted countries in the world, while the capital, Baghdad, ranked 13th among global cities in 2022, according to an annual global survey conducted by a Swiss company that manufactures air purifiers.[/size]
[size=45]Climate change has hit Iraq hard in the past few years in an unprecedented manner, as it is the fifth country most affected by global climate change, according to the Iraqi Ministry of Environment and the United Nations.[/size]
[size=45]Iraq loses 100,000 dunams (a dunam is 1,000 square metres) annually due to desertification, and the water crisis has caused agricultural land to decrease by 50 percent, according to official statements.[/size]
[size=45]According to estimates by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), the forest area in Iraq now constitutes only 8,250 square kilometers, or 2% of the country’s total area.[/size]
[size=45]Iraq suffers from a severe shortage of green spaces, with the green space per person estimated at only 0.2 dunams, which is much less than the global average of 12 dunams. Many Iraqi cities are also among the most polluted in the world, with the density of cars and factories contributing significantly to air pollution.[/size]
[size=45]Climate change is exacerbating this problem, as it leads to rising temperatures, which negatively affects the growth of trees and plants. In addition, the lack of rainfall leads to a scarcity of water, which is necessary to irrigate green spaces and maintain their health.[/size]
[size=45]In addition, frequent sandstorms bury trees and plants, causing them to die. The effects of climate change on green spaces in Iraq can be clearly observed, as many gardens and parks suffer from drought, and trees and plants become more susceptible to diseases and pests.[/size]
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