Ecosystems, farming & migration

Preparation and Planning

Ensure access to an overhead projector or interactive whiteboard for this lesson as the ability to show film and slides to the class is important to lend colour to the MOD topic.

Supporting Student Worksheets are supplied for this lesson and will need to be photocopied in advance. It is advised that the activities which they suport is carried out in groups of three or four, so it will not be necessary to provide one copy per student.

You may like to arrange access to an ICT suite for students to prepare their presentation for Episode 4. However this is not vital to the success of the activity.

About the MOD Topic

The Madan, otherwise known as the Marsh Arabs are an ancient tribe of farmers, that have historically populated the vast, fertile marshes of Hawr-Al-Hawizah in southeastern Iraq. Until 1991, they lived traditionally, growing rice, sugarcane, papyrus and dates, raising water buffalo, fishing and building boats and houses from reeds. The total population was estimated to be around half a million.

In the early 1990's Saddam Hussein ordered the draining of the marshes to destroy the cover they provided for rebel Shia fighters, and to punish the Marsh Arabs for providing them with sanctuary. He diverted the flow of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers away from the marshes, and started an ecological war. His actions changed the hydrological cycle and turned Iraq's vast wetlands, which once spread over some 20,000 square kilometres, into a desert.

The Marsh Arab people who depended on the marshes for their food and their livelihoods, were forced to flee to survive. Those who tried to remain were sometimes driven away at gunpoint by the military. By the time coalition forces entered the country in 2003, only 85,000 people remained in the wetlands out of a population that was once almost half a million. Some 40,000 refugees were living in Iran, with the rest displaced throughout Iraq.

In 2001, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) released satellite images showing that 90 per cent of the wetlands had been lost. Further studies released in 2003 showed that an additional 3 per cent had gone. Experts feared that the entire wetlands could disappear by 2008.

After Saddam's regime was toppled, things began to change for the Marsh Arab people. They breached many of the dams and blocked the canals that had drained the wetlands and the marshes have begun to be revived, re-flooding the basins, which had become salt pans. By April 2004, around one fifth of the marshes had been re-flooded.

Since then a United Nations-led restoration scheme has been put in place, and the revivification process continues. Sadly, however successful, the scheme cannot hope to restore the wetlands to their former glory.

The Royal Navy, British Army and the Royal Air Force were integral to both the Coalition's invasion and regime change, and the revival of the marshes. British Armed Forces have provided vital and much welcomed security to the Marsh Arabs throughout the process of rehabilitation, as well as some assistance in reconstruction work.

Useful links:
http://www.public.iastate.edu/~mariposa/iraqmarsh.htm
http://www.edenagain.org/satellite.html
http://marshlands.unep.or.jp/
www.globalpolicy.org/security/issues/iraq/occupation/report/index.htm
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-invasion_Iraq,_2003-2006
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/iz.html
mod.uk/DefenceInternet/DefenceNews/InDepth/UkMilitaryOperationsInIraq.htm

Further Opportunities for Learning

Ask students to create an annotated field sketch of a wetlands ecosystem using either the image of the Marsh Arab settlement on Slide 2, or an image that they have sourced themselves online.

Ask students to name the eight major biomes and to research:
Their principle locations worldwide.
The characteristics of one of them. These include climate, vegetation, animals, soils, human use, farming.

Ask students to Identify and describe the primary factors affecting the Marsh Arab's style of farming. They should use the following headings:
Social and Economic Factors: Labour; Capital; Technology; Markets; Government.
Environmental factors: Hydrology; Climate; Relief; Soil.

Ask students to put themselves in the shoes of one of the Marsh Arabs when Saddam first began to drain their water supply. Ask them to write a diary entry on the eve of their departure to Iran, describing their feelings about the destruction of their habitat, and their fears about the unknown land to which they are about to depart.

Ask students to conduct some online research into other instances of forced migration worldwide where UK armed forces have been on hand to supply security, humanitarian aid or support to refugees. They may like to plot their findings on a world map.

Student worksheet answers

Download the teachers notes PDF to access the answers for this lesson.