Al-Bu Mustafa, IRAQ: Iraqi villager Omar Ziad gazes at the cracked and barren earth where his fish farm once stood, lost to water conservation efforts during a devastating four-year drought.
Dry fish farms abound in Iraq following a crackdown on unauthorised ponds in an effort to conserve water. At full capacity, the farm held about 50,000 fish and earned the family the equivalent of US$1,300 to US$2,600 a month, far more than many in the country.He added that they sold their fish"cheaply", but since all but five of the village's 80 fish ponds shut down, the price of carp has almost doubled, now selling at more than 8,000 dinars per kilogram, he said.From a bird's-eye view, the backfilled dry patches of land that replaced the ponds are marked out by unpaved roads.
Declining rain over the past four years coupled with rising temperatures has brought water levels in the Tigris and Euphrates rivers to staggering lows, for which Baghdad also accuses upstream dams built by neighbouring Turkey and Iran. Shamal justified the crackdown on unauthorised fish farms by saying the ponds"increase the water surface susceptible to evaporation", provoke seepage into the soil, and contribute to"environmental pollution".
According to him, the sector employs two million Iraqis."All of these families will migrate to the cities" which might struggle to accommodate them, he predicted.In Iraq's far south, high salinity has harmed fishing in the Shatt al-Arab waterway, where the Tigris and Euphrates converge before spilling into the Gulf.