Try to imagine how life would change if your water supply suddenly vanished. That’s what happened to the Ma’dan people of southern Iraq—the Marsh Arabs—when the water started to disappear ...

Today, the best way to revisit that civilisation is to read Sir Wilfred Thesiger's book, “The Marsh Arabs”. He spent much of the 1950s living among them, shooting wild boar, canoeing around ...

Until very recently, the Ma‘dan, more commonly known as the Marsh Arabs, numbered as many as 500,000, living lives specially adapted to the unique, freshwater ecosystem they called home.

The first environmental analysis of the Mesopotamian marsh lands of southern Iraq since the end of the Gulf war has shown that the "cradle of civilisation" is bouncing back. Soil and water samples ...

An Iraqi Marsh Arab collects reeds at the Chebayesh marsh in Nassiriya, 300 km (185 miles) southeast of Baghdad. (Reuters) "There is modern housing, there's refrigeration, there are roads, schools.

The Marsh Arab way of life fit harmoniously into this millennia-old natural order. In the 1980s, under the rule of Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, that lifestyle became endangered.