And We Created From Water Every Living Thing

An ongoing documentary project about the dying marshlands of southern Iraq.

The project And We Created From Water Every Living Thing looks into a mostly overlooked natural disaster, the looming death of the Mesopotamian marshlands. Known to many as the cradle of civilization, the marshlands of southern Iraq are drying up, due to a lack in influx of water from the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. In part, caused by dam projects in neighbouring countries Turkey and Iran as well as rising temperatures as a result of climate change. Iraq, facing temperatures well over 50 degrees, is the fifth country in the world most vulnerable to climate collapse, according to the UN. The conditions have already forced tens of thousands to migrate within the last few years, and likely will render the first place that humans cultivated, unliveable if nothing is done to secure the flow of water into the marshes.

With this project I hope to invoke a sense of connectedness, to the people living off the land, to nature and to our collective heritage. If we lose what is left of this fundamental part of our ecological evolution, we lose a part of ourselves.

Through the project we meet some of the people native to the marshes who try to sustain a living there. We meet Karakhan and Abu Nafah, who remembers when the marshes were a source of life, with an abundance of fish and water buffalos, we meet Mustafah, who dreams of teaching his own children how to fish and hunt, like his father taught him. And we meet Sabreen, who along with her family have migrated to Al-Chibayish from Al-Midaina, where drought had already made it impossible to grow anything and their buffalos began to die of hunger due to the increasing salinity of the water. We see the remnants of what is thought to have been the inspiration for the Garden of Eden. And we are reminded that without water there cannot be life.

It is almost impossible to overstate the fundamental cultural significance this place has for humanity and how we understand the world. It is here that the myths we know from the world’s major religions originated. It was here that the wheel was invented. It was with the reeds from the marsh that the first words were inscribed on clay tablets. It was here that people learned to follow the stars and cultivate the land. Calling it the cradle of civilization is not only a tired cliche but also a colossal understatement. Therefore, if the marsh disappears, it is not just a biodiversity crisis and an environmental disaster; it is at least as significant a loss of world heritage.