Birds are the other half of this story, and the marshes of southern Iraq are a vast and vital place for them. The Ahwar of Southern Iraq, as the World Heritage site is formally called, includes three wetland areas, the Central, Hammar and Huwaizah marshes, and the Refuge of Biodiversity is the part of the listing that acknowledges how much wildlife they hold. The reed beds lie along one of the major bird migration routes between Siberia and Africa, and millions of birds pass or winter here.
Among them are species found almost nowhere else. The Basra reed warbler breeds in the reeds, and the Iraq babbler, a bird of the marsh edge, is known mostly from this country. Pygmy cormorants, pelicans, herons and cranes crowd the lagoons in winter, and the smooth-coated otter, a subspecies of otter that lives in the marshes, hunts the channels. Fish such as the bunni, a large barbel, are an important food, and the waters are shared with turtles, wild boar and jackals on the drier banks.
The landscape is a lacework of reeds, at times standing three or four metres high, with channels and open water that glitters at dawn and dusk. The air carries the smell of wet mud and green stems, and in spring the whole marsh hums with insects and birdsong. The recovery after the marshes were drained in the 1990s has been uneven, and shifting water supply, upstream dams and drought make the wetland's future uncertain.
Reaching this place depends on local conditions. There are few roads and no tourist facilities away from the towns, boats are the way to move, and security and permissions vary. Heat is extreme in summer, and winter nights are cool and damp. Fuel and supplies would need to be taken from places like Basra, and local guides are essential. It is a site for careful, respectful travel, and a reminder of how much depends on the flow of two rivers.