The broad leaves and delicate purple flowers floating on the Euphrates look breathtaking — but they are suffocating the waterways of Iraq, celebrated as the “land of the two rivers.”
The water hyacinth, nicknamed the “Nile flower” in Iraq, is an invasive plant native to South America’s Amazon basin that has ravaged ecosystems across the world, from Sri Lanka to Nigeria.
The fast-spreading pest poses a special risk in Iraq, one of the world’s hottest countries that is already suffering from regular droughts and shrinking water resources due to overuse, pollution and upstream river dams.
Photo: AFP
The exotic flower was introduced to Iraq just two decades ago as a decorative plant, but now the mighty Tigris and Euphrates rivers are being choked by its rapid spread.
Its glossy leaves form a thick cover, absorbing up to 5 liters of water per plant per day and blocking sunlight and oxygen vital to the aquatic life below.
That has made the hyacinth a formidable floral foe for Iraq’s fishers, who sell hauls of river carp in local markets to those cooking masgouf, a national delicacy.
Because of the infestation, carp are dying and fishing nets get caught in the tangle of flat leaves, roots and flowers that also hampers boat travel.
“Our livelihoods are gone, all because of this Nile flower,” said Jallab al-Sharifi, a fisherman in the southern province of Dhi Qar who makes his living on the Euphrates.
Another fisherman east of Baghdad who works the Tigris said his haul had dropped by as much as half.
The hyacinths have also affected Iraqi farmers who already struggle with low water levels due to a series of dams built further upstream in Turkey and Iran.
The thick floating vegetation draws down water levels and clogs irrigation channels leading to agricultural fields.
“During this harvest, our vegetable sales in the local market were down by a third,” said Ahmed Yasser, a farmer in a village near Kut, east of Baghdad.
The hyacinth causes another type of pressure — a 100 square meter patch can weigh up to 5 tonnes, putting major strain on dilapidated riverside infrastructure, Iraqi officials warn.
In the village of al-Badaa, the thick columns of a brick bridge that once spanned a wide stretch of the Euphrates are now covered by hyacinths.
A dam further upstream encloses a swamp-like patch of land also covered by the plant.
If the flowers are not removed, “the bridge and dam of al-Badaa will collapse,” said Jalil al-Abboudi, the village sheikh.
“And if they collapse, the whole water supply system will collapse,” he said.
That would deprive vast regions — all the way to Iraq’s southernmost province of Basra — of the fragile water resources their ecosystems and economies rely on.
Iraq’s oil-dependent economy is already projected to shrink by nearly 10 percent this year, according to the World Bank.
A health crisis sparked by a shortage of safe drinking water in the south hospitalized about 100,000 people in 2018.
Locals blame authorities for what they say have been years of neglect and insufficient maintenance.
“The lack of action by the ministry of water resources, and the fact that there have been no renovations of infrastructure, caused an invasion that reached potable water reserves,” al-Abboudi said.
Saleh Hadi, head of research at Dhi Qar’s agriculture directorate, said that the ministry was well aware of the dangers and working hard to mitigate them.
“The ministry of water resources is working to combat this plant mechanically by uprooting it from irrigation channels,” he said.
The perennial predicament this year has been made even worse because of the COVId-19 pandemic.
Under normal conditions, Iraqi villagers along the banks of the Euphrates pluck out the plants by hand instead of using a chemical agent that would destroy the delicate ecosystem.
This year, a countrywide lockdown imposed to stem COVID-19 infections has allowed the hyacinth to spread mostly unhampered.
Some vigilantes are defying the curfew to fight the parasitic flower which they see as a bigger threat to their livelihoods than the pandemic.
While villagers are sneaking out to uproot the plants by hand, Mohammed Kuwaysh, an environmental activist and member of a farming cooperative, is thinking even bigger.
His collective raised about US$800 from local farmers to equip small speedboats to clear waterways by cutting hyacinths en masse.
“The government isn’t listening, which allowed this flower to spread like wildfire,” Kuwaysh said.
FRAUD ALLEGED: The leader of an opposition alliance made allegations of electoral irregularities and called for a protest in Tirana as European leaders are to meet Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama’s Socialist Party scored a large victory in parliamentary elections, securing him his fourth term, official results showed late on Tuesday. The Socialist Party won 52.1 percent of the vote on Sunday compared with 34.2 percent for an alliance of opposition parties led by his main rival Sali Berisha, according to results released by the Albanian Central Election Commission. Diaspora votes have yet to be counted, but according to initial results, Rama was also leading there. According to projections, the Socialist Party could have more lawmakers than in 2021 elections. At the time, it won 74 seats in the
A Croatian town has come up with a novel solution to solve the issue of working parents when there are no public childcare spaces available: pay grandparents to do it. Samobor, near the capital, Zagreb, has become the first in the country to run a “Grandmother-Grandfather Service,” which pays 360 euros (US$400) a month per child. The scheme allows grandparents to top up their pension, but the authorities also hope it will boost family ties and tackle social isolation as the population ages. “The benefits are multiple,” Samobor Mayor Petra Skrobot told reporters. “Pensions are rather low and for parents it is sometimes
BACKLASH: The National Party quit its decades-long partnership with the Liberal Party after their election loss to center-left Labor, which won a historic third term Australia’s National Party has split from its conservative coalition partner of more than 60 years, the Liberal Party, citing policy differences over renewable energy and after a resounding loss at a national election this month. “Its time to have a break,” Nationals leader David Littleproud told reporters yesterday. The split shows the pressure on Australia’s conservative parties after Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s center-left Labor party won a historic second term in the May 3 election, powered by a voter backlash against US President Donald Trump’s policies. Under the long-standing partnership in state and federal politics, the Liberal and National coalition had shared power
CONTROVERSY: During the performance of Israel’s entrant Yuval Raphael’s song ‘New Day Will Rise,’ loud whistles were heard and two people tried to get on stage Austria’s JJ yesterday won the Eurovision Song Contest, with his operatic song Wasted Love triumphing at the world’s biggest live music television event. After votes from national juries around Europe and viewers from across the continent and beyond, JJ gave Austria its first victory since bearded drag performer Conchita Wurst’s 2014 triumph. After the nail-biting drama as the votes were revealed running into yesterday morning, Austria finished with 436 points, ahead of Israel — whose participation drew protests — on 357 and Estonia on 356. “Thank you to you, Europe, for making my dreams come true,” 24-year-old countertenor JJ, whose