Though Collapse focuses on societies that destroyed their own environments—rather than those that, like the Ma'dan, have their land sabotaged by outsiders—the processes of societal collapse are tragically similar. In fact, their case presents an accelerated instance of environmental damage and an easily observable example of the ties between ecological and societal survival.

Not only did the Ma'dan use the land for subsistence farming and hunting, but also as the basis of their participation in the national economy (they wove reed mats for export to Iraqi markets) and their community structures (their villages were defined by close groupings of islands). The Ma'dan were therefore particularly susceptible to damage to their habitat.

"Saddam Hussein understood the value of the marshes and how integral and important they were to the people—so he destroyed them," said Michelle Stevens, an environmental scientist and the former manager of Eden Again, a marsh restoration project run by the US-based Iraq Foundation. "Hussein knew how connected people are to their environments, better than a lot of our leaders in the West know it."

This connection, however, is becoming increasingly apparent. Overpopulation, generally, is precipitating problems like desertification, which is driving many people in Africa and China out of their homes, while climate change is poised to further swell the ranks of environmental refugees. The residents of the island of Tuvalu are already fleeing their nation as sea rise gradually engulfs their South Pacific island. "More people are being displaced by environmental causes than by wars today," Oliver-Smith said. "It's a problem we're just starting to see the beginnings of."

Now, the case of the Ma'dan may demonstrate whether undoing the environmental ruin can pave the way for repairing the human damage. Reflooding of some Iraqi wetlands began immediately after Hussein was ousted in April 2003, and local and international scientists started planning the reconstruction. This attempt has been more successful than anticipated; in December 2006, satellite photos revealed that nearly 50 percent of the marshes had been restored.

But the survival of the wetlands is by no means guaranteed. The fires changed the soil chemistry, and, in some places, the now claylike earth is unsuitable for supporting plant life. The restored land is patchy and unconnected, making the survival of native plants and animals more difficult. Some species have returned to the wetlands, but the biodiversity remains reduced.

What's more, dam-building and hydroengineering upstream from the region has disrupted the annual spring flooding—caused by snow melt in nearby highlands—that replenished soil and nutrients and washed salty water from the wetlands. "It's absolutely imperative in the marshes to have something like the floods, otherwise you concentrate your salt and pollutants," Stevens said. Researchers at Eden Again are designing a model of a mechanical flooding mechanism that would simulate seasonal floods, but even this would not make all the marshes recoverable, said Alwash, who directs the project.

Regrettably, restoration of an environment is, according to Diamond, "not always" enough to bring a society back from the brink of collapse. Demographic studies have shown that many of the Ma'dan, particularly the young, do not want to return to the abject poverty of their homeland and see better opportunities in the resettlement camps, farms, or cities to which they fled. Though many refugees have returned—some 90,000 Ma'dan are now living in the marshes, Alwash said—the population remains at less than half its former size.

Given the circumstances, however, maintaining a smaller population could be the Ma'dan's best chance of success. Some intertribal conflict has already been reported as refugees return, and the decreased wetland area could spur fights for space in, and access to, the marshes. "We cannot afford to have more than 90,000 people depending on the marshes as their main source of livelihood," Alwash says. "It's not the marshes of the 1970s."
(By Emily Anthes, Seed, 22/03/2007)
http://www.seedmagazine.com/news/2007/03/the_vanishing_act.php?page=2