The following is an extract from an article in the Guardian newspaper on 24 October

Conservation knows no boundaries – as ties between Iraq and Norfolk show Nature Iraq is repaying international support by donating to the Norfolk Wildlife Trust’s appeal to buy land next to Cley Marshes

The Mesopotamian Marshes, a vast expanse of reeds and open water twice the size of Norfolk, are the largest wetland ecosystem in the Middle East and support a number of species of global conservation concern. The marshes hold the only breeding population of the globally endangered Basra Reed Warbler and the world’s highest wintering numbers of the threatened Marbled Duck.

Now the marshes are under threat again, this time from the building of huge dams in Turkey on the Tigris and Euphrates, the rivers that feed and nourish a wetland complex so important for biodiversity as well as being the homelands of the Marsh Arabs, made famous by the writings of Wilfred Thesiger. The charity Nature Iraq is actively campaigning to influence the building and use of these giant structures that can have such a devastating effect for the lives of people and wildlife.

But it’s not just conservation in Iraq that is Nature Iraq’s motivation. It may surprise many that this NGO has just made a donation of $1,000 to the Norfolk Wildlife Trust’s £1m appeal to purchase 143 acres of land next to Cley Marshes on England’s North Norfolk coast. Nature Iraq has received much help from colleagues in the UK, especially through BirdLife International, and makes this donation as an act of global support for the protection of marshes everywhere.

The full article can be read at:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/oct/24/conservation-iraq-no…