The Key Biodiversity Areas Project in Iraq : Objectives and scope 2004 – 2008

Nature Iraq conducted biological surveys throughout Iraq during the 2004 to 2008 period under the Key Biodiversity Areas (KBA) Project. Th is continuing initiative comprises the largest and most comprehensive biological surveys to take place in Iraq in well over 25 years. Under the KBA Project in Iraq, Nature Iraq in cooperation with the Iraqi Ministry of Environment, has visited over one hundred sites in southern Iraq and in Kurdistan in northern Iraq to survey plants, fi sh, reptile, bird and mammal species. In addition, water quality physical parameters, sediment, plankton and benthic invertebrates were examined at these sites to determine the overall health of key habitat areas. Birds have been a primary focus of the surveys. Th is has involved the collection of data on these potential sites of key biological diversity including the identifi cation of species, population counts and information on how species are using a site (e.g. breeding, feeding, migration, etc.). Th is paper provides an overview of this continuing project that will, over time, permit the refi nement of data and the survey of more of Iraq as security improves within the country. Th e paper also summarizes current recommendations for the management of some of the KBA sites in Iraq.


Introduction
Th e marshes of southern Iraq have faced signifi cant environmental change in the last 20 years, as documented by the United Nations Environment Program, UNEP (Partow 2001).Th is was driven by government-directed drainage of the marshes that caused extreme changes in water quality, biota and, most importantly, the lives of several hundred thousand local people.Th e severe impact on people has been documented by the AMAR International Charitable Foundation (Nicholson and Clark 2002).Th e marshes were also aff ected over this time by the reduction in water fl ow into the Euphrates and Tigris rivers through construction of hydroelectric and reservoir facilities throughout the countries of the Tigris-Euphrates Basin (Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Syria and Turkey).
It is estimated that, within only a few years, up to 90% of the original wetland area of the southern marshes of Iraq was turned into semi-desert.Th e systematic drainage of these marshes impacted all aspects of the biological systemnoticeably the bird, fi sh, plant and other wildlife species of the area.Since 2003, however, up to 58% of these marshes had been re-fl ooded (as of August 2007), helping to restore the ecological and human socio-cultural web of the region.
It is not known if this re-fl ooding can be considered sustainable due to the uncertainty of water availability year-to-year in Iraq.For several years, water levels had been favorable, in part due to high seasonal snowfalls in neighboring nations and in northern Iraq, the source areas of much of the water available to the marshes (Alwash Iraq Foundation, personal communication, 2005;Partow, UNEP, personal communication 2005).However, in 2008 water levels in the Marshland areas declined due to drought conditions.
During the 1980 to 2003 period, assessment of the impacts on wildlife populations was not feasible.Surveys to capture biodiversity data have now resumed as an important component of the programs of Nature Iraq in association with Italian, Canadian and other funding agencies.Th is work was directly implemented in concert with the Iraqi government, non-government organizations (both inside Iraq and internationally) and university partners.Th is support has increasingly enabled capacity building and training projects (such as reported by Evans 2004, andPorter andScott 2005) over the 2004 to 2008 period for Iraqi scientists and managers who seek to restore the ecological character of the southern marshes of Iraq.Work was also initiated in Kurdistan in northern Iraq in the winter of 2007.Th e Nature Iraq KBA project has assisted in the generation of better understanding of biodiversity and management needs, and the implementation of wildlife surveys, monitoring programs and marshland restoration and management initiatives in Iraq.
Th is paper summarizes a more detailed report submitted to the Government of Iraq (Rubec and Bachmann 2008).It is hoped that this paper and its associated report will collectively assist in the conservation of the marshes by increasing cooperation between government, non-government and university stakeholders in Iraq.

The Key Biodiversity Areas Program
Th e development of reliable information on the status of the Key Biodiversity Areas of Iraq is designed to support long-term restoration and management planning for important habitats such as the southern marshes of the country.Th e defi nition of "Key Biodiversity Areas" closely follows that developed and implemented by BirdLife International (BLI) with national partner agencies, including Nature Iraq, in several countries.Th is defi nition recognizes that biological richness and importance are "more than birds", thus extending the highly successful BLI international program for Important Bird Areas (IBAs).Th e KBA program in Iraq, as discussed below, builds on the IBAs Program led in many countries by BirdLife partner organizations.Th e Mesopotamian Marshes for example support at least 34 species of conservation concern including eight globally threatened bird species (Salim et al. 2009, this volume) including endemics such as the Iraq Babbler and the Basra Reed Warbler (Stattersfi eld et al. 1998).

Objectives
Th e objectives of the KBA fi eld program are: -To undertake annual winter surveys (between the months of December and February 2005 to 2008) and annual summer surveys (between the months of May and July 2005 to 2008) of as many of the KBA sites as possible; -To record information on the status of habitats and threats to these sites; -To provide advice to the Ministry of Environment and other Iraqi stakeholders on the future management relevant to restoration of healthy ecosystems and communities of each KBA site; and -To publish relevant scientifi c and technical papers and reports on this work.

KBA Sites
Early on in this Project, decisions had to be made as to which sites would be the focus of the fi eld studies.It was agreed to build upon known, published information on sites of biodiversity interest in Iraq.Th e chosen locations for KBA fi eld studies were initially based on the Important Bird Areas (IBAs) of Iraq as published by Evans (1994) and supplemented by a listing of potential Wetlands of International Importance (meeting thus the site criteria of the Ramsar Convention) in Iraq by Scott (1995).
Building upon the same basic principals as IBAs but not restricted just to bird species, KBAs are seen as the building blocks of landscape-level conservation planning, according to the World Conservation Union (IUCN 2007).Th e Iraqi KBAs are thus considered to be sites of global signifi cance for biodiversity conservation as they readily meet the IUCN criteria based on a framework of vulnerability and irreplaceability (IUCN 2007).
Under vulnerability criteria, any sites where critically endangered, endangered or vulnerable species occur can be listed as a KBA site.Irreplaceability criteria are concerned with those sites that hold restricted-range species, species with large but clumped distributions, globally signifi cant congregations, globally signifi cant source populations and bioregionally-restricted assemblages.
Within the southern marshes of Iraq, Key Biodiversity Area (KBA) sites that were chosen are those previously known to be particularly important for breeding and wintering birds and that had been the subject of re-fl ooding since 2003.A total of 43 possible KBAs were thus selected in Iraq.Of these KBA sites, 26 are located in southern Iraq (see Fig. 1 and Table 1 below).Sites numbered 17 to 42 were the initial focus of the southern fi eld program.Th ese sites occur mainly in the south and are concentrated in Missan, Th i Qar and Basrah Governorates.Four sites were located in Kurdistan in northern Iraq (one of these represents three distinct areas) in the governorates of Sulaimani, Erbil and Dohuk and were fi rst surveyed in the winter of 2007.
Due to the extensive time that had passed since these sites had been initially visited and/or evaluated as IBA sites, it is now accurate to call them potential KBA sites.Most of the sites had not been surveyed since at least 1979 or earlier.Upon evaluation of these sites, it was felt that some might no longer meet IBA and KBA criteria due to extensive ecological damage or change.It was also recognized from the outset that security conditions, military restrictions, and other factors could signifi cantly aff ect the planning and access to sites in this project.Th us, it was not expected that all potential KBA sites might be fully surveyed, as would be ideal.Indeed, due to these types of limitations, no work was done at several of the listed sites (particularly No. 017, 018, 019, 020, 021, 022, and 027).KBA sites numbered 001 to 016 lie in the northern and western areas of Iraq and were deemed beyond the scope of the initial work.However, several of these sites (Sites 001, 002, 003, 004a, b, c as well as Mosul Lake) are now included in the fi eld program in the Kurdistan Region of northern Iraq.Additional sites were added based on local knowledge and stakeholder input and are to be considered potential KBA sites until a fi nal assessment is complete.Marine sites at the mouth of the Shatt al-Arab are also known to have high biodiversity value particularly for avian species.However, the extreme sensitivity of this military zone has precluded most scientifi c work in the immediate area beyond several Shatt al-Arab sites (No. 40-42) visited sporadically to date by Nature Iraq (see Fig. 1, Table 1).

Field study locations
An initial February to March 2005 survey was restricted to seven KBA sites in southern Iraq.It was limited by practical and security issues in that period and seen as a startup, experience-building exercise.However, useful data were collected nonetheless.Th e winter of 2005 survey included portions of KBAs No. 030, 032, 033, 034, 036, 038 and 039 (see Table 1).All other southern KBA sites were included in the subsequent surveys, except where security concerns interfered.
In order to facilitate fi eld survey logistics, seven major wetland areas in the south were defi ned (Figs 2 and 3 show two examples of these areas): Hammar Marshes (HA), Central Marshes (CM), Hawizeh Marshes (HZ), Middle Euphrates Marshes (ME), Seasonal Marshes (SM), Shatt Al Arab Marshes (SA), Khor Az Zobayr Marshes (KZ).In Kurdistan, northern Iraq, sites were organized by Governorate (Figs 4 and 5 show two examples of these areas): Sulaimani (S), Erbil (E), Dohuk (D).Th ese areas are all identifi ed on the map in Fig. 6.

Biodiversity observations
Th e KBA team recorded fi eld observations during winter and summer in 2005, 2006, 2007 and 2008 that focused on birds, fi sh, zooplankton, macrophytes, phytoplankton, sediments and water quality.Anecdotal mammal, reptile and amphibian observations were also included.In 2008, the southern survey was reduced to bird, habitat and vegetation surveys.Papers and reports on these surveys are currently in preparation or in press.-Ensure improved project coordination; -Build political and cultural support.

IRAQ THE GULF
Th ere was strong agreement between participants that the marshes faced a wide array of threats, including: -Fires; -Date palm plantation removal; -Dumping and waste accumulation; -Construction of dams and impoundments; -Unsustainable agricultural, hunting and fi shing practices; -Water pollution; -Wildlife disturbance during breeding seasons; -Habitat loss and fragmentation; -Road construction and industrial development; -Lack of legal land titles.
It was indicated that there should be a mechanism for confl ict resolution with local communities.Th is could be based on the number of aff ected families and type of lost opportunities for that local community.Also, it was pointed out that there was a need to have a National Wetland Strategy and national accession to the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands (which took place in Iraq in 2007).Integration within other global conventions such as the Convention on Biological Diversity could also provide a strong advocacy tool.Discussions shed light on identifi cation of the marshes as a special development area.Participants also agreed that attention should be made to transboundary management issues for the Hawizeh Marsh (e.g. for the marshes area shared with Iran) to address threats to the ecological character of this area.Hawizeh Marsh is now Iraq's fi rst Ramsar site and a draft management plan has been completed for the area (Rubec 2008).

Discussion of management recommendations for southern KBA sites
Conservation actions that are recommended for each of the priority categories, using a weighted point assignment process developed at the 2004 workshop (Evans 2004) are presented below in Table 2.In addition, a summary of the KBA sites felt to be "critical", "urgent" or "high" in terms of conservation priority and notes on the current habitat conditions at surveyed sites are presented in Table 3. Th e sites are thus ranked as: Critical priority sites that require intensive and immediate action (over 39 points); Urgent priority sites that require ongoing action at a less intensive level (30-39 points); or High priority sites that require lower-level actions (20-29 points).

Conclusions
Comprehensive ecological survey work is still not possible in all areas of Iraq due to security concerns over much of the country.Hence, many sites cannot be visited or visited systematically.Often those sites that are visited cannot be completely assessed due to restrictions on available time or other logistical concerns related to security problems.Despite these factors, the Nature Iraq KBA work has been an important step in assessing Iraq's biological diversity.Over time, this will benefi t the conservation and management of this national resource.Nature Iraq has collected valuable data on important ecosystems now in the process of undergoing extensive ecological recovery after decades of degradation and destruction.
Th e data collected over the past four years and from up-coming surveys will provide critical information as Iraq engages the international community in agreements such as the Convention on Wetlands (Ramsar Convention), the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), the Convention on the International Trade of Endangered Species  (CITES), the Convention on Migratory Species (Bonn Convention) and others.Nature Iraq will continue to maintain and update information on these and other sites within the country and will make data available to the Iraqi government, stakeholders and other interested organizations and agencies concerned with biodiversity in Iraq.Th e biological diversity of the country is not contained within Iraq alone but is shared with the region and the globe.As a result, Nature Iraq will be incorporating many of its key observations into internationally shared sources such as the Worldbird Middle East Database, an Internet-based spatial database about birds provided by the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (United Kingdom) and BirdLife International.Th rough these and other methods, Nature Iraq hopes to share information, resources and expertise with regional and international organizations that can assist as partners with Iraqi conservation eff orts.
others.Th e authors express their admiration for the wealth of knowledge and enthusiastic engagement of participants in this project.Th e KBA Project was supported by the Canadian International Development Agency from 2004 to 2006 and the Italian Ministry of Environment, Land and Sea from 2006 to the present.
Scott (1995) refer toEvans (1994)numbering system, Scott number refers toScott (1995)numbering system.Name in parentheses, where present, represent the Nature Iraq name for the site.

Table 3 .
Summary of 2004 conservation rankings for KBAs in Iraq based on threats and biological importance for birds, and 2008 current habitat status.