In Iraq, saving the forests of the iconic Kurdish mountain

For more than half a century, this autonomous region in northern Iraq, prized for its mountains and bucolic landscapes, has lost half of its wooded areas. A tragedy, when you consider that Kurdistan is home to more than 90% of the country's forests, which have been hit hard by global warming and desertification.

The causes include illegal logging, forest fires that are intensifying with the summer drought, and bombings and military operations on the northern border, mainly blamed on neighboring Turkey.

At the Sarchanar nursery, the oldest in Iraq, workers are busy unloading young plants from a trailer and lining them up in bins.

Here, around forty varieties are developed to be planted in forests or given to farmers: pines, cypresses, oaks – the emblematic tree of the Kurdish forest – but also eucalyptus, olive trees, junipers.

"Climate change has an impact on the development of plants," acknowledges agricultural engineer Rawa Abdelqader. "So we favor trees that can withstand high temperatures and consume less water."

With support from the World Food Programme (WFP), micro-mesh nets have been installed to protect trees from the sun, speeding up plant growth and reducing evaporation. Other greenhouses have been equipped with suspended sprinklers, which are more water-efficient.

"Drought" and "human neglect"

The UN commitment has helped boost Sarchanar's annual production from 250.000 shoots to 1,5 million by 2024.

Over a five-year period, WFP plans to support local authorities and stakeholders in planting 38 million trees on more than 61.000 hectares in Kurdistan, and work to preserve an additional 65.000 hectares of woodland.

Because between 1950 and 2015, more than 600.000 hectares of forests were eradicated, according to two official censuses. "In 70 years, almost 50% of the forests in Kurdistan have been lost," summarizes Nyaz Ibrahim, program officer at the WFP.

The causes include "water shortages, rising temperatures, irregular and declining rainfall" and also "human-caused fires," she lists.

Over the past 14 years, some 290.000 hectares have been affected by fires, confirms Halkawt Ismail, director of the forestry office at the Kurdistan Ministry of Agriculture.

These fires "break out mainly during the summer drought (...) and above all because of the negligence of citizens," he said.

It also recalls the untimely felling of trees in the 1990s by residents for heating purposes, in the midst of an economic crisis.

Combats and military operations

Elsewhere in Kurdistan, forests are collateral victims of clashes between the Turkish army and Turkish Kurdish fighters of the PKK.

This summer, Kurdish media and NGOs accused Ankara's bombings of starting several forest fires. At the end of June, the Turkish Defense Ministry also accused the Kurdistan Workers' Party on X of starting fires to obscure visibility and hide its positions.

By installing "more than 40 outposts and bases" in Iraqi Kurdistan, the Turkish military has "cleared dozens of kilometers of roads through wooded areas, and cut down forests around the bases to clear their view", Wim Zwijnenburg of the NGO PAX confirmed to AFP.

“This practice has intensified since 2020,” he emphasizes.

A decline in forest supervision - particularly due to the conflict that has displaced entire villages - but also "rising temperatures and drought" constitute "a breeding ground for fires, caused by natural causes, or by bombings and Turkey-PKK fighting", he explains.

"With limited or no forest management, these fires can affect larger areas."

"When the strikes take place, many areas catch fire," Kamran Othman, a member of the NGO Community Peacemakers Teams (CPT), told AFP. "People cannot go and put out the fires for fear of being bombed," he laments.

"Native trees"

To reforest, the authorities are working to create artificial forests and increase nursery production, says Mr. Ismaïl, regretting however insufficient human and financial resources.

Civil society is also mobilized. As in Suleimaniyah, the second city of Kurdistan surrounded by hills, where activists denounce bulldozers and excavators that have been eating away at a slope of Mount Goizha for several months, for a new real estate project.

On the outskirts of the metropolis, luxury real estate complexes and gleaming glass towers have already sprung up on the hillside.

In Erbil, the regional capital, a campaign launched by local organizations aims to plant one million oak trees. Since 2021, 300.000 trees have been planted, says project manager Gashbin Idrees Ali.

"Climate change is happening, we cannot stop it, but we must adapt," he sums up, justifying the choice of oak.

"This tree consumes less water, it can sequester a significant amount of carbon in the soil," he explains. "We monitor their growth for four or five years, then they will survive for hundreds of years."