The marshes of southern Iraq constitute a unique environment, and are of considerable environmental, cultural and economic importance. They have existed for hundreds of thousands of years and have, in the past, covered a significant area of southern Iraq. Their presence has brought numerous benefits to the region, including cooling the local climate, providing irrigation and improving the fertility of the land. They have been a haven for plant and animal life. Because of all this, the marshes have been home to a people—the Marsh Arabs. They are a people whose roots go back to the beginning of civilization. The AMAR International Charitable Foundation’s heritage project has been working to help those people whose families left the marshes under the previous regime to reacquaint themselves with their home, history, culture and way of life. Furthermore, the project has sought to establish knowledge of, and respect for, the Marsh Arab people in the wider world. This book forms part of that latter endeavour.

Edited by Baroness Nicholson of Winterbourne, this book is divided into four sections: history, geography, sociology and economics; each written by a different Iraqi specialist.