Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
home to ancient human communities for more than five millennia. The area's inhab-
itants are known as the Ma'dan, Marsh Arabs or Marsh Dwellers, whose population is
estimated to range from 350,000 to 500,000. . . . The Marsh Arabs have evolved a
unique subsistence lifestyle that is firmly rooted in their aquatic environment. Most of
the Ma'dan are seminomadic, but some of them are settled in villages. . . . Water buf-
falos play a pivotal role in Marsh Arab existence” (UNEP 2001, 15-16).
Traditionally, Marsh Arabs lived in a flat watery landscape, sleeping in reed homes
that are built on humanmade islands in the marsh, traveling in their boats or
ma-
shoofs
, and welcoming travelers in their
mudhifs
, which are large structures woven of
reeds in a style that dates back to the Sumerian culture, roughly the third to fourth
century BC. Water buffalo (
Bubalus bubalis
) have played a role in their culture simi-
lar to that of the camel in Bedouin Arab culture (Maxwell 1957; Thesiger 1964). Life
in the marshes centered around gathering reeds in the marshes, caring for water buf-
falo, fishing, hunting for birds, and seasonal work in date palm plantations and rice
fields.
The marshes were sustainably managed by Marsh Arab tribes for thousands of
years. Traditional management of the marshes included selective harvesting and
burning of reeds on a seasonal and phenological basis, multiple-species management
(reeds, fish, waterfowl, bird eggs, rice), burning senescent vegetation to stimulate new
growth, spatial and temporal restriction of fish harvest during spawning, and land-
scape patch management. These management practices were beneficial for reed
growth and biomass production, to maintain diverse patch dynamics, and to increase
microhabitat diversity. The only anthropological study specifically devoted to a part of
the Mesopotamian marshes was published in Shakir Salim's
Marsh Dwellers of the
Euphrates Delta
. After spending two years (1954-1955) living with the Ma'dan, Salim
classified the inhabitants occupationally into cultivators, reed-gatherers, and buffalo
breeders (Salim 1962). According to Salim, 82 percent of households fished, 49 per-
cent hunted, 66 percent farmed, 58 percent cultivated crops for food, 75 percent used
reeds, 78 percent kept animals or birds, and 2 percent worked for a wage. Salim ob-
served that traditional Marsh Arab society burned and cut reeds and bulrushes period-
ically to obtain fodder for the water buffalo. The Marsh People burned the old reeds
every year, around January, to stimulate the growth of young reeds. Reeds were used
for animal fodder; building boats and rafts, houses, and mosques/public places; and
weaving mats and baskets for sale. The most important use for reeds was mat weaving.
Salim (1962) estimated that about forty thousand mats were used for huts, twelve
thousand for guest houses, and ten thousand for annual export. These qualitative data
are indicative of the extensive ecological impact of reed harvesting and traditional
management on marsh culture and ecology.
As a result of this long history of human management, the marshes are a cultural-
ized landscape, formed over thousands of years by agricultural and traditional man-
agement practices such as the selective harvesting of more than eight different sizes
and textures of reeds, the use of fire, and hunting and fishing. These intermediate-
scale disturbances have long been the key to ecosystem structure and function. These
traditional activities are important to the local economy and have brought in more
than $7.3 million per annum (Maltby 1994; Nicholson and Clark 2002).
