In Iraq, saving the forests of the iconic Kurdish mountain

In a nursery in Suleimaniyah, hundreds of young pines, eucalyptus, olive and pomegranate trees grow gently, protected from the summer sun by awnings. In Iraqi Kurdistan, efforts are increasing to counter the ravages of deforestation.

For more than half a century, this autonomous region of northern Iraq, popular for its mountains and bucolic landscapes, has lost half of its forested areas. A tragedy, when we know that Kurdistan is home to more than 90% of the country's forests, hit hard by global warming and desertification.

At issue: illegal felling of trees, forest fires which intensify with the summer drought and bombings and military operations on the northern border, mainly blamed on neighboring Turkey.

At the Sarchanar nursery, the oldest in Iraq, workers are busy unloading young shoots from a trailer and lining them up in bins.

Here, around forty varieties are being developed to be planted in forests or given to farmers: pines, cypresses, oaks – the emblematic tree of the Kurdish forest – but also eucalyptus, olive trees, junipers.

“Climate change has an impact on the development of plants,” acknowledges agricultural engineer Rawa Abdelqader. “So we favor trees that can withstand high temperatures and consume less water.”

With the support of the World Food Program (WFP), micro-mesh nets have been installed to protect the trees from the sun, accelerating plant growth and reducing evaporation. Other greenhouses have been equipped with suspended sprinklers, which are more water-efficient.

– “Drought” and “human neglect” –

UN commitment has helped boost Sarchanar's annual production from 250,000 shoots to 1.5 million in 2024.

A Kurdish woman working for the “Million Oaks” project, launched by organizations in Kurdistan to plant one million oak trees, inspects the water connection at the initiative's site in Erbil, the capital of the autonomous Kurdistan region in northern Iraq, on August 1, 2024 © AFP – Safin HAMID

Over the next five years, the WFP plans to support local authorities and stakeholders to plant 38 million trees on more than 61,000 hectares in Kurdistan, and work to preserve an additional 65,000 hectares of forest.

Because between 1950 and 2015, more than 600,000 hectares of forest were eradicated, according to two official censuses. “In 70 years, almost 50% of the forests in Kurdistan have been lost,” sums up Nyaz Ibrahim, a programme officer with the WFP.

The causes: “water shortages, rising temperatures, irregular and declining rainfall” but also “fires of human origin,” she lists.

In the last 14 years, some 290,000 hectares have been affected by fires, confirms Halkawt Ismail, director of the forestry office at the Kurdistan Ministry of Agriculture.

These fires “break out mainly during the summer drought (…) and especially because of the negligence of citizens,” he says.

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He also recalls the untimely felling of trees in the 1990s by residents for heating, in the midst of an economic crisis.

– Combats and military operations –

Elsewhere in Kurdistan, forests are collateral victims of the clashes between the Turkish army and Turkish Kurdish fighters from PKK.

A Kurd working for the “Million Oaks” project, launched by organizations in Kurdistan to plant one million oaks, shows a sample of oak at the initiative's site in Erbil, the capital of the autonomous Kurdistan region in northern Iraq, on August 1, 2024 © AFP – Safin HAMID

This summer, Kurdish media and NGOs accused bombings from Ankara of triggering several forest fires. At the end of June, the Turkish Ministry of Defense in turn accused the Kurdistan Workers' Party on X of starting fires to obscure visibility and hide its positions.

By installing “more than 40 outposts and bases” in Iraqi Kurdistan, the Turkish military has “cleared dozens of kilometers of roads through wooded areas, and cut down forests around the bases to clear their view,” Wim Zwijnenburg of the NGO PAX confirmed to AFP.

“This practice has intensified since 2020,” he emphasizes.

A decline in forest supervision — particularly due to the conflict that has displaced entire villages — but also “rising temperatures and drought” constitute “fertile ground for fires, caused by natural causes, or bombings and Turkey-PKK fighting,” he explains.

“With limited or no forest management, these fires can affect larger areas.”

“When the strikes take place, many areas catch fire,” Kamran Othman, a member of the NGO Community Peacemakers Teams (CPT), told AFP. “People can't go and put out the fires for fear of being bombed,” he laments.

– “Native trees” –

To reforest, the authorities are working to create artificial forests and increase nursery production, says Mr. Ismaïl, regretting however insufficient human and financial resources.

Civil society is also mobilized. As in Suleimaniyah, the second city of Kurdistan surrounded by hills, where activists denounce bulldozers and excavators that have been gnawing away at a slope of Mount Goizha for several months, for a new real estate project.

Photo taken on July 10, 2024 showing buildings under construction in Suleimaniyah, the second city of the autonomous region of Kurdistan, in northern Iraq © AFP – Shwan MOHAMMED

On the outskirts of the metropolis, luxury real estate complexes and gleaming glass towers have already sprung up on the hillside.

In Erbil, the regional capital, a campaign launched by local organizations plans to plant a million oaks. Since 2021, 300,000 trees have been planted, says project manager Gashbin Idrees Ali.

“Climate change is happening, we can't stop it, but we have to adapt,” he says, justifying the choice of oak.

“This tree consumes less water, it can sequester a significant amount of carbon in the soil,” he explains. “We monitor their growth for four or five years, and then they will survive for hundreds of years.”

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