Story# 6 Founding Women and the Environment Organization (WATEO)

In November of 2004, the tribal leaders of the Iraqi Marshlands came to my office at the Ministry of Environment. They came without an appointment, since the communications in Iraq are not reliable. I wanted to see the tribal leaders; I felt I could not let down people who traveled more than 339 miles to see me. 

I interrupted my meetings and day-to-day schedule and I greeted the tribal leaders. I wanted to listen to them. I knew part of their story, the Marshlands’ story. The Iraqi Marshlands are 20,000 square kilometers, located in three provinces of southern Iraq; Maysan, Thi Qar, and Basra. The lifestyle of the Marsh goes back to 5000 years BC. They build their houses from reeds, and these houses float on the water. They live on fishing, and they are famous for their warm hospitality, kindness and generosity.

The United Nation Environment Programme (UNEP) recognizes the Marshlands as “the most extensive ecosystem in the entire Middle East region.” [1]

In 1993, Saddam’s regime destroyed the Marshlands by building a large-scale hydro-engineering project in the marshes [2]. The destruction resulted in forcing nearly 500,000 people to become refugees or eternally displaced people. Moreover, the beautiful Marshlands that used look like Venice, Italy became like a dry desert!

Why did Saddam’s regime destroy the Marshlands? A security reason was behind this destruction, which I call an ecocide, a destruction of the entire ecosystem. Saddam’s regime considered the Marshlands a security threat, since they provided a strategic hiding place to its opponents. The regime did not want to take any chances after crushing an up-rising in 1991 in the governorates that host the Marshlands. After the fall of the regime in 2003, the Marsh Arabs broke down the small dams that were used to block water from reaching to the Marshlands. However, I did not know the reason behind the tribal leader’s visit and why they wanted to see me. Why me?

They wanted water! They wanted to see me, because they heard about the campaigns of distributing safe drinking water that I led and they want me to lead a campaign in the Marshlands. It is true that in 2003, Marsh Arabs broke down the dams that blocked the water from reaching the Marshlands. However, the water is salty. No one can drink from it. They walk miles and miles to collect the water. At the end of our meeting, they said I was the only policymaker who agreed to meet with them. I think other policymakers did not meet with them because they came without an appointment. However, the tribal leaders could not take an appointment, because they live in remote areas where they lack communications. I followed it up with another project to assess health and environmental concerns in the Marshlands.

I cooperated with the United Nations Environment Programme to rehabilitate the Marshlands and successfully raised funds for this mission [3]. Then, I invited the Marsh Arabs to attend any meeting that involves the rehabilitation process. Beside the work, I felt the Marsh Arabs trusted me and I trusted them. They knew I delivered, I promised them a water campaign and I delivered, I promised them an assessment campaign and I delivered, a rehabilitation process and I delivered. We had a trust-trust relationship.

One day, while we were waiting for a meeting to resume, they said, “Could you train our women? We want our women to participate in the next meeting and we want them to be prepared.” I knew my term as a Minister was about to end. However, I felt I could not let them down. Thus, in 2005 I founded Women and the Environment Organization (WATEO) to train the Marsh women. WATEO is a UN funded organization dedicated to training women to build their capacity to manage the environmental resources. WATEO Empowers women to:

Provide a healthy and clean environment for their societies

Influence the decision making process to ensure environmental justice to women

Support the essential role of women in developing sustainable and ecologically sound consumption and production patterns

Recognize women as primary users of environmental resources

For more info, please visit http://www.wateo.org/

WATEO’s experts travel to the remote areas of the Marshlands to train women. The training takes place in the houses of the tribal leaders.

The experts use day-to-day language to train the women. They avoid using a scholarly language, idioms, or scientific jargon.

I must say I learned a lot from the Marsh Arabs both, men and women. I learned what effective listening is; I learned to listen to someone’s problem and be able to reflect with some suggestions. I learned how to build trust; policymakers can build trust by delivering on your promise no-matter what. I did not have one penny to rehabilitate the Marshlands. However, I raised 11 million dollars from the Japanese government to rehabilitate the Marshlands.

I also feel that I owe a lot to WATEO’s experts who believed in empowering women in their environment, who travelled miles and miles to train women, who accepted the risk of traveling to such a remote area, because they felt they could make a difference and they did.

Is that a story about security? Yes it is. Security is about building trust. Lack of trust resulted in destroying the Marshlands, building trust resulted in rehabilitating the Marshlands.

[1] United Nations Environment Programme, Desk Study on the Environment in Iraq, 2002, P.39

[2] Mishkat Al Moumin, Mesopotamian Marshlands: An Ecocide Case, Georgetown International Environmental Law Review, Vol. 20, spring 2008.

[3] The ministry was the second lowest budget among other ministries. The entire budget minus salaries was seven million dollars. However, I raised 11 million dollars to rehabilitate the Marshlands.