Kurdistan Region loses half of its natural forests

Like most countries around the world, the Kurdistan Region has suffered significant environmental pollution due to the rise in the number of vehicles, factories, generators, and burning of waste.

The dangerous results of the above-mentioned reasons are slowly beginning to show in the environment of the Kurdistan Region.

In 1957, the first forest survey was conducted in the Kurdistan Region. Then the Kurdistan Region had about 5 million dunums of forest lands. 

"In 2015, the second survey was conducted and forest areas have shrunk to 2.5 million dunums in just 58 years," said Ahmad Muhammad Mawlood, spokesman for the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG)'s Environmental Protection and Improvement Board.

According to Mawlood, the Kurdistan Region is being affected by the many forest fires that occurred around the world in the past few years. 

The most recent one was the large forest fires in Turkey which burnt 1,600 square kilometers of the country's forest in its Mediterranean Region in July and August 2021.

"The last few years' large forest fires affected the global environmental system because we have one air. The environment does not know administrative or political boundaries. When the air is polluted, it will affect other places," Mawlood said.

"So the recent wildlife fires in Turkey affect the Kurdistan Region's environment as it is a neighboring country to us and if the wind direction heads towards the Kurdistan Region, the poisonous gases such as the Carbon monoxide and dioxides and nitrogen will pollute our air," he added.

"When forests are burned or trees are cut down, it will cause environmental pollution, which scientists now consider to be the fourth element to protect the environment," he explained.

The Kurdistan Region has only 2.5 million dunums of forest land left which is a dangerous and horrifying statistic compared to the overall area of the Kurdistan Region which is 40.6 million dunums.

Causes of forest fires

The large forest fires have many causes, including natural causes due to summer heat, tourists making fires or throwing cigarettes into dry bushes, and there is also deliberate fires caused by unknown individuals. 

These were all minor causes but the major causes are mainly military activities in the Kurdistan Region. The Region has lost most of its forests during the fallen Baath regime's operations in the mountains of the Kurdistan Region.

Furthermore, the continuous Turkish operations in the border areas have caused massive losses in the forest lands of the Kurdistan Region.

Protecting the environment

Raising the people's awareness is a fundamental need for protecting the environment in the Kurdistan Region, according to Mawlood.

"A part of our work is raising awareness of the people through the awareness offices that have been opened in three provinces of the Region and now we plan to open another office in Halabja," Mawlood said.

He also pointed out that the Region's Environment Board has a fourteen-member council that includes representatives of 14 ministries, all of whom are related to the environmental issue, that meet every two months to discuss and address issues related to the environment. 

No proper air quality measurement devices in Kurdistan Region

"So far, the Kurdistan Region does not have adequate devices to measure the quality of air and environmental issues, as we have seven devices in Duhok along with two other portable devices that don't work due to old age or lack of 24-hour electricity," said the spokesman for the Environment Board. 

"We also have some devices in Erbil and Sulaymaniyah but they also don't work properly," he added.

Air pollution causes in Kurdistan Region

There is a group of reasons for the air pollution in the Kurdistan Region which are the rise in the number of private vehicles, electricity generators, and waste disposal.

The number of cars has reached more than 1.861 million by June of 2021 apart from police and military cars, according to Mawlood.

"We need 7 to 8 million liters of gasoline daily which emits about 1.7 kilograms of carbon dioxide into the air and there are also more than 5,500 electricity generators in the Kurdistan Region's which generate electricity in the Region's neighborhoods," Mawlood said

Another reason behind the air pollution in the Kurdistan Region is caused by waste disposal as it is usually disposed of in the soil or burned due to lack of recycling plants.

"About 6,500 to 700 tons of waste are mixed into the Region's soil as we don't have a recycling plant, but we have a large number of refineries and factories," Mawlood added.

Until 2015, the percentage of greens in the Kurdistan Region was 12.4%, which according to international standards should not be less than 15%.

"The Kurdistan Region should have 25% to 30% due to a group of reasons that pollute the environment," Mawlood said.

In 2018, the Greenpeace Organization conducted air quality measures in the Middle East and 2 of the 10 most polluted cities in the region were Baghdad and Erbil.



PUKmedia