Erbil Edition
Erbil Edition is an insight into the Kurdistan Region. The host and his guests discuss various topics such as history, culture, environment, travels, books, politics, past and present.
Erbil Edition
Shouting for Rivers: Waterkeepers Iraq-Kurdistan
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Nabil Musa has spent the last 15 years advocating for the rivers and water sources of the Kurdistan Region through field activities, research, seminars, trainings and lobbying. He is one of the founders of Waterkeepers Iraq-Kurdistan. Based mainly in Slemani province, Musa works with water and environmental activists across the Kurdistan Region, Iraq and the world.
You have been working in the field of climate change at least for the last 16 years since 2010. And I've heard your name, I've seen your work, your activities, and your main concern is water. That's why your specialty is water.
SPEAKER_00Why is water so important to you we I think we wouldn't be here if there was no water. What makes our blue planet special, different to any other planet we have, or star and uh is water. So we're here because of water. So water is a life not just for the human but for all plants, creatures, insects, we all rely on this element and is a lifeline, it's a blood, and we should see it as a blood because without this beautiful lifeline, we cannot continue. We cannot actually be here. We cannot. In psychology they say the 15-10 years of your life, soon as you're born, that will be the base for entire life in the end. So I was born next to the river, very close to this river. You mean this river? Yes, this is downstream. We call it Serchnar, and there was a state, the sugar factory state. My dad used to work in a sugar factory, and there was a state for the older workers, and that's where I was born, right next to the river. There was that the last house of the state, uh Chakrakamp here. So um I was born in 1976 there, and I grew up with a river. With this, what's the name of this river? This river upstream we call it Sechna River. But if you call it here, we call it Chakchak. If you go upstream, Kani, Spiko, Kani, Kurdino. So this water is coming from all the snow juice from the mountain of Pira Magrun. So Piramagrun Mountain Range starts from here all the way to Pira Magrun is 45 kilometers. So this mountain range is grappling this beautiful snow and rain and filter it clean, coming down.
SPEAKER_01What we do with it, look at the state of it, is heartbreaking. And you told me a minute ago that this used to run throughout the year. Now it has become seasonal. It dries up in a month or two. What's the cause of the a river that has been flowing for thousands of years to suddenly stop? Exactly.
SPEAKER_00Um climate change is one of the main things. Uh uh, that's something is global, and and we all pay a huge price for this uh as a human. And of course, the lack of managing the water and war. I was born in 1976. I was in the war, and still we are in a war. So when any nations, when you're in a war, obviously the last thing you would think about is nature and you live very temporary lifestyle, and you just want to survive basically, daily survival and survival. And of course, when you in the war, you create in the traumatic nation. So we all traumatize by uh living temporarily and not having a safe life and uh uh clean water. So slowly, slowly, Iraq, we're going toward desertification. There's so many reasons. The main ones I I would say managing the luck of all these dirty businesses, and um we try to catch up with Europe, and which is all this wrongdoing just because we wanna have a better life and we're neglecting our nature, without the nature we we cannot continue. So we came from nature.
SPEAKER_01And all the fighting in Kurdistan, years of fighting against Iraq, against other armies, was for the sake of this land. Because this Kurdistan is a country with mountains, with rivers. So if you don't take care of your environment, what did you fight for? Exactly.
SPEAKER_00That's why my concern in the last 15 years being a waterkeeper, what is the water keeper? We we I know that's the sound of water, but if he abuse the water, cannot shout. So we shout for river. We're here to witness to tell the new generation what the state of our river used to be looked like. It wasn't seasonal. I was catching fish in the middle of the summer from this river downstream.
SPEAKER_01So where we are sitting now used to be a nice flowing river with trees.
SPEAKER_00Absolutely, absolutely, all the way up there. And no way you could actually cross the river, no way. But so the river was functioning perfectly, suitable for fishing, for drinking, and for swimming. So we this three important points you have to find it in a free-flowing river. If you lose one point of it, you cannot call it sweet water, you cannot call it um, for example, uh drinkable uh water. So when I was a kid, I was like spending all my day, I was taking care of some ships and finding herbs eatable, catching fish eatable, when the plane used to attack uh Iranian. We were I was born in the in the war. I was six years old, uh, four years old, Iraq and Iran war started. So this river was my savior because we used to have a shelter. Wow when the sirens came, we used to go to the stream and hide ourselves in a shelter. Sometimes we used to we used to spend two weeks in a shelter because it was so much bombardment. It was home for me. It was home, foods, everything. And my childhood, as you see, I have a different lifestyle because of this river. So I love animals and I want my river back. I want um I I want to tell my story to the new generation. Um there is no society, no um whatever we decided to actually make um life as a as a society, as a uh nation, first we had to find a river or water. So when Kurdish we call it Au Awadani. So Sleimani, we decided to do, for example, 300 years ago, 250 years ago, we decided to make a life in here because of this river, because of Kanakawa River, Chemi Kanakawa, it was a stream, and of course all the cares, water, which is is this very special. Um yeah, as you see how they destroying and dumping. Uh I'm talking to you, but I my attention to it. You see it live. That's a criminal. That's that's that's a crime. So I call these people, they don't have any sensation. Let's wait until we completely lose it. Yes.
SPEAKER_01And after human losses, you worry as waterkeepers of Iraq. You this river has decreased, it will stop it through the summer. Do you worry that it might happen to many other rivers and streams that we don't even know about in Kurdistan? Absolutely. I think that's the case.
SPEAKER_00Absolutely. And and because the way we manage in it, the way we see it, even in the city, if you look when the water is coming back to the householders, it becomes uh like a water carnival, you know, everybody washings. We we don't see it as a blood. We don't see it until we lose it. So you think despite all these uh concerns, people still waste water? Absolutely. Householders, so we're all in the same boat. The government stakeholders, they are really bad with managing surface water, underground water, fresh water, and sanitation like urban waste. Um we don't take care of the heavy water like sewage. Iraq, we are 19 cities. We don't have a sewage facility treatment plant for turning black water, blind dirty water, sewage to clean water. So, what we do with it, we dump it to the fresh water or surface water or underground water. We don't filter any. And all this chemical we use, they all go to the lands and rivers. This river you see is very clean here. Just tiny, but you go downstream, you will see. I will show you later on where all the sewage started. So all the way to Halabjah near Darbanikan, we have a we did survey on this river. We did from uh Hanarani Saru, uh upper Hanaran village, all the way to Jardasna, to Darbanikan. I don't know, there is a report, there is a data on our website. We counted all the threats. What is the threat for the river? This is the threat. Tomorrow, when they finish, the householders, they sewage, it will go directly to here. Oh, that's very true, yeah. Absolutely. We don't filter nothing. We have a pipeline sewage, but where it goes, that's our special.
SPEAKER_01The pipeline is only close to the houses. Exactly. After that is no unprogramming.
SPEAKER_00Me and my dog, we are special for tackling and chasing all this sewage. We've been trained how to find all these threats. We specialize. That's why we by finding all this threats, that's the voice. Yeah. So that voice is low now. But hopefully, we are working on new generation to become water keeper, become a mountain keeper, become a forest keeper, become a cavekeeper. Because without all this beautiful nature, natural elements, we nothing. We know we shouldn't even be here. Yeah, that's a question.
SPEAKER_01Do you have other people to work with you? Do you see other young people or old people in Kurdistan who are like you to worry about our rivers and water sources, or there are only a few? No.
SPEAKER_00Fortunately, yes, after uh 15 years have been talking about this. Uh, and of course, uh young people, they are we do uh citizen science, we train them how to actually do uh water quality monitoring, which we treat uh we train young people how to find threats. Absolutely, we we have a force. We have a force. These people they might be thinking eh, they are a joke. We're not. Yeah. Young people, they know what's going on because of us, because of you. I have to thank you with your podcast and with all the videos you posting. So that's that's what we should do as the older generation. We should tell them all this bomb we are planting, it will explode at some point. As you see, dam is one of them. Yeah. Behind me, this is Chaksa. Is this a destroyed dam or they are building it? It's failed dam. No, no, it's a failed. As you see, in 2005, this was funded by Swedish NGO and corrupt engineer. They built this in 2000, they started 2002 or something like that, and and and and um it failed 2005, it caused big disaster. Oh, big massive disaster, and I remember. We have that on the video. I was um young at that time. Um we recorded everything. So right now we have globally, um, as you see, this river is free-flowing river now, okay? Yeah, should be free, should be flow all the way to uh where it goes. Yeah, the marshlands in the basra, for example. But what we do with the free-flowing river globally, we build dams. So the way we build them as a human is really bad.
SPEAKER_01Is really so that that's one thing because the Kurdistan region has built a few dams, and uh I know that in the United States they have begun to demolish their old dams. They realized the value of the river is bigger than the value of the dam. Thank you so much. So he but is there not a difference between one country and another? No one should build dams?
SPEAKER_00Do you think if you ask me, I'm a kayaker, I'm a swimmer, free-flowing river, nothing wrong in nature, everything is perfect.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Everything is there for a reason. Free-flowing river is there. Like, why water rapids?
SPEAKER_01The name is in itself.
SPEAKER_00Yes, exactly. So when we dam it, even like the law starts in here in Iraq. Hammurabi, when he's writing all the laws, and one day this community they run to him, um, they say, We have a problem. They said, What is the problem? They said, water, sharing waters. And so he makes law about dams. At that time, for example, we always should take care of the nature, environmentally friendly behavior. Like the way animals they build dams is very friendly, especially beaver, uh badger. But the way we build dams, this is nothing compared to Mosul Dam or Ataturek Dam, for example, or Yellow River dams in China. Those dams is choking our blood systems basically. That's why Earth is no longer functioning to have in us, and we we give heart attack to the earth because of all these dams. We're slowing down the perfect ecosystems to actually make it destroy. That's why we're having funny feisty events like wildfires and tsunamis and corona and you name it, because of look what we do. We turn in our nature to concrete. Right now, where we are sitting, if you look at it around me, is all construction waste. So you build, never mind, you build malls, but what we do with the waste. With the waste, yeah, construction waste, we actually just throw it the nearest place we can to the river most of the time. So, what we do to the new generation, if we honest, if we honest, as an older generation, we have to tell them all this. We're actually destroying your future. Because there is no future if there is no river.
SPEAKER_01Actually, most people don't even know there is a river in Slimania City which is such now. So imagine the new generation.
SPEAKER_00Soon as the coffee shops open, two weeks before it's open, they know that it's a coffee shop. But they don't come to the nature. But this is the my problem. Like Iraqi people, Kurdish people and Kurdistan, if we don't go to the nature, if we don't go to the Pirate Magrum mountain, we drive by it and we don't see it. Myself personally, I know all of these things because I go to the river every day, nearly. You care about them and you are curious. It's is my love, is my relationship. I have a real relationship with Peter Magrum, with uh Hazarmer, with all the caves we have. That's why I I want to make the uh noise. I want to shout. I want to say Kurdistan is the heaven. You don't have to, you know, really dream about heaven. This is heaven, but in four.
SPEAKER_01Don't destroy it. Exactly. I agree. I mean the nature here is beautiful. You should not try to make it more beautiful with resorts or this and that. Leave it alone. It's the heaven you want, completely.
SPEAKER_00Sorry, my my dog just likes uh picking dentists away. Um and yeah, and thank you, like to you paying attention to this because our attention is being stolen. Yeah, uh, our feelings being stolen by screen. As soon as we wake up, we we actually make other people richer by paying wrong attention to things. This my attention, maybe probably you know, I know you different because probably your attention is not being stolen by could be TV, could be other stuff. So I read something the other day, um it rode my uh my mind and saying, um be careful what you practice because whatever you keep practicing, you're gonna be good at it. So be careful what you practice. So we're practicing in general. I don't speak for myself, but in general I can see people they practicing wrong things. That's true. Please, this is the message for the young people as well. Never mind have the iPhone 18, 15, or having an iPad screen, something, but you have to actually balance that practice, what you practice. Nature practices it makes you realize why we keep opening hospitals, why we have so much noise in the society, why I am living in a society, but when I go to the nature, I feel like I'm in the camp. We really live in a camp. Houses living in this block of house, you're not being designed for that. You should be free, you should be out there. You're designed for 18 hours of hunting, yeah, and sitting down, doing nothing, and you're proud of it, you're losing your purpose. So, human, if you don't go to the nature, if you don't see how the vegetables grow, if you don't see how the bees work, and you you you have a wrong lifestyle. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01And I think in Kurdistan we have this amazing chance. It's a small country. If you drive five minutes, ten minutes from any city, you are in the heart of nature. It's easy to connect with nature in Kurdistan. So that's why it's people's own responsibility just to go and explore.
SPEAKER_00Absolutely, but I think we need more royal model like yourself and people's, which is the honest. We don't give wrong information to the young peoples because you don't learn everything from the school and universities. Nature's your university. Real universities is your nature. We should all know how to grow our food, what to see, what to do, and like what is the healthy lifestyle? For me, that the craziest things, we drive to work and we go to the gym. You know, if you the healthy society is how you actually measure it by what? You see, you don't see people to do jogging. When I run, people they see me, uh-uh, uh, uh, what's wrong with these guys? And I was telling my friends, can we go jogging? Can you go for a run? He said, What why? What's happened? It's like in our mind, it's if somebody's run, it has to something happen. No, running is good for your body. Go to the nature's climbing mountain is good for your mind, for your body. But in here, it has not been recognized by because of in the last 15 years, I can see slowly, slowly, people they do uh go to the nature, they kind of they they they they they appreciate what we have left. Uh but unfortunately the people, those people on power, especially uh people with money, billionaires and people in the politics, they run in our life, they do big mistakes. Like, for example, building dams on on Rwandes River, for example, that if you type it Rwandus Gorge on on Google, it describes it as one of the most spectacular actually gorge in the Middle East. But what we do with it, we're building dam. We're destroying it, we're erasing, we deleting our actually culture and society by wrongdoing. We don't feel it. Dam is no longer actually good for nature. You choking your blood, your lifelines.
SPEAKER_01There must be alternatives.
SPEAKER_00Oh, absolutely. There is friendly dam, there's a beautiful environmentally friendly dam. And believe me or not, the fish we used to have in Tanjaro, but we don't have them anymore. All the way from Derbenikan and Tanjaro coming all the way upstream, spawning in here. Here. Absolutely, and going down all the way. There is no fish, there is no turtle, there is nothing. So I have witnessed in that because free-flowing river, that's how you actually have in a healthy fishery lifestyle because of the free-flowing river. When you build a dam, fish doesn't like it. Like the fish in Ducan Lake, it goes back to a mowat to spawn because the river is fresher and colder and it's very, very uh suitable for spawning. So when you build dams, we kill fishery, we kill biodiversity, we kill in our culture and everything. So, what we do, politicians soon is oh, let's uh be proud of uh we finished another dam, we finished another dam. Dam is bad. Dams is killing our everything. So, what is the alternative? Manage it in a better way, okay? Environmentally friendly dams, and when you build dams, you make fish ladder. Um, I mean, fish can actually go to the ladder and go to go back to the fresh river and come back to the lakes. So there is always a way to fix this injury. We we we give cancer to our planets in general.
SPEAKER_01Is there not an uh a ministry uh uh government institution here to worry about the rivers and water sources?
SPEAKER_00But they do worry about it in the wrong way. Okay? Look, just look what what's happening behind us. This is this is this is this is this is my problem like with the people, they are on power, they're trying to turn in our nature to concrete it. And and and uh the problem is like when you give tools to the wrong person doesn't know what to do with it. So basically, our system is run by the politicians and people don't say that much as well.
SPEAKER_01Of course, we are guilty too. And the politicians, government people might not necessarily have bad intentions, they may not know what to do for the environment.
SPEAKER_00There is no many expertise to do survey about where did we go wrong? How did we destroy our nature? Like, for example. This is wrongdoing, for example. What we do, we go to the caves, for example. Okay? People they go to the cave, we don't know how to react to the stagma light, for example, we break it. Okay, we go to the we wherever we go, we don't see it as a temple. We don't see it as a we don't see the value of it.
SPEAKER_01Exactly. Exactly.
SPEAKER_00Or the spray paint. Exactly, spray paint, distractions, pollutions. Look at all this construction waste and all this pollution. Most of the times we use river as a dumping ground. Yes. Just for uh that is the wrong thing. Take it away, yeah. Exactly. Give it to River, River will take care, take it away. And no, no, this is your life. This is your blood. If you don't take care of it, you don't take care of your 80% of our bodies the water.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00We came from soil and water. So without it, these guys, what they do to this soil, they do it to my probably our grand-grandparents' body, basically. That's that's your body. We are all one. Exactly. And it's providing you food, and you will go back there again when you die. And you come from that. What is Adam and Eve's story? Is that the mud? Clay. Yeah, clay. And there is a Hyam's poem I always I love. He's saying be careful with that tarakota in your folder, the goza. Don't drop it, break it. It might be your grand-grandparents' body. That's beautiful. So for me, the feeling of like how did Rumi become so beautifully poetic and his poem, because he was observing the winds moving the grass and the trees and sound of the river. Look at the pollution we have in the city. Sound pollutions, air pollutions, water pollution, everything's pollution. I see society as a pollution, I see human as a pollution, as a polluter. So we are actually bad for this planet. That's why during the corona, the earth was trying to get rid of us because we are bad. We're doing bad things. We do look at the Trump. Okay? Having Obama for eight years working with the um Paris Agreements, and they as soon as another politicians come to the power, bring it back to the zero. So the curve is just keep going up and keep going up. Do you know what? If we don't bring it down, it will be it's already too late. If you ask me Iraq, why Iraq is in the fifth most dangerous country in the world. Why? Agriculture, life, Mesopotamia, the cradle of civilization, everything started from here. From upstream, from actually, this is this river created 11,000 years of civilization in Bestansur because of this river. There was an archaeologist, they did um uh excavation, they found the oldest fisherman's net in Bestansur in Sharazur area. Wow. Like it was marshland there, and now nothing, nothing, just a sewage. Yeah, because this water after Serchunar, from Darwaza, the first sewage stops yes, start from there all the way to Bestansuru Darbanikan.
SPEAKER_01Is it only in the cities or do you think it has also reached the far hearts of nature?
SPEAKER_00We keep going toward it. So everywhere. Everywhere. Suleimani was finishing from the Searchnar, okay? But now where we are standing, look, the householders, this is Pershmerga, this just behind the Chakchak is Kuzlat. You walk upstream. Pershmerga was the first checkpoint. There was no regime could control this area. It was forest. Wow. So there were trees here. Absolutely. And now there is not a single tree. Nothing, nothing. And the bird, when they fly, when they come from Africa or other countries, what they look for? Tree and water.
SPEAKER_01So you've seen birds from other countries landing here when you were a child.
SPEAKER_00Million. Every year. The sky was no way you could see the sky. It was just black with black crow, stallion, you name it. Even flamingo. I have seen flamingo in this river. Luck luck. Everything was.
SPEAKER_01And that's only 40 years ago. Absolutely. And now it's not even a local tree, not a local bird, just construction waste as here.
SPEAKER_00Exactly. This is what we do to our fertile lands and soils. We turn it to actually desert. Iraq is going toward desertation because of bad doing by humans, by us, and not paying attention what we have left. And they plant five trees, and that's it. What is this? This is gulag. This is this is like a uh they put it in the boxes. That's why everybody's that's why all the hospitals they're doing very good. Gulag, that's yeah. It's a gulag, it's a construction labor camp. Exactly, it's a construction, it's a camp. But I I I I feel uh living because I do a lot of outdoor activities. Uh I I I I know I'm not designed for for 150 meter lands. I'm not designed for that.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I heard that humans are made to spend 82% of their time outdoors. Absolutely. Now it's 90% indoors. Absolutely.
SPEAKER_00We are we are we are a mountain people, we are a mountaineer, we're born to like dealing with fresh water, what we have in here, mountains, our identity, our everything, as the creation of this lifeline, this mountains, bringing all these clouds and making love, snow, filter to us. In South, I felt whenever I go to South, this is not a bad thing. South of Iraq. Yeah, south of Iraq. When I go to the there is so many beauty you can see in the marshlands, but unfortunately, since 1991, the Gulf War, we destroyed uh Iraq's nature. It was one of the biggest um environmental disasters in entire human history happened in 1991 because of uh drying, uh destroying all the marshlands, um, and of course uh blowing up all the oil wells in Kuwait and Iraq uh during the Gulf War. That was one of the biggest uh man-made um environmental disaster. But whenever I go to south, there is still some beauty on the um on the marshlands, but you don't see mountains. That's why there's no much drama in the sky. They don't have snow, they don't have a fresh river like us. So what we do, we're destroying it for them as well. So they are suffering. Busra, it will be not longer actually, sooner or later, uh suitable for humans to leave in because imagine 19 cities, 50 million people, the sewage waste, urban waste, chemicals, hospital waste, industrial waste all go to the river.
SPEAKER_01So And the problem is that in Iraq, uh in Kurdistan as well, but mainly in Iraq, people are so proud of the rivers, the Tigris and the Euphrates. Something you are so proud of. Why do you dump all this sewage into it?
SPEAKER_00Exactly. That's one of the biggest problems, and that the bigger, bigger, bigger than that problems, it's created by upstream countries. Like I like to say this because uh most of the time the people they don't realize 80% of Iraq's water uh comes from neighbor countries like Turkey and Syria, from the greater Kurdistan. But where is the greater Kurdistan? Part of it is controlled by Syria, part of it controlled by Turkey, part of control by Iran. The Zagros and Adolan Mountains is creating this beautiful, fresh river, creating the Twin River, Euphrates and Tigris and Greater Zab and Lasazab. They no longer actually functioning like say 100 years ago, because the the age of building dams is only 100 years old. So we've been damming our rivers. We have 75,000 large dams in on our fresh river on this planet. And most of the countries globally they're recognizing the dams as an uh unexploited bomb. And it it is a bomb. It is the bomb.
SPEAKER_01Actually, when you look at a dam, you get you are scared a bit. You know one day as well.
SPEAKER_00Is the man-made mistake? Yeah, Mosul dams. Six million Iraqis people every day's lives endangered because of his bursting, is failed dam. That's why uh there is an Italian company, they dump in, they pump in uh every day's I don't know how many tons of cements and um to keep the dams functional until they build another one. Makhul uh dams they are building now.
SPEAKER_01So um what do you say to people who not to people, I mean some research and data says that Kurdistan has enough water, we only have the problem of management. Is that true? We do we have enough water and we miss manage?
SPEAKER_00No, we don't have there is no the problem we Iraq and Kurdistan and Iraq, but if you look at the populations keep rising, okay? And if you look at Turkey, they keep finishing the GAP project, which is holding 22 dams. Iso dams is one of them. So it's a group of dams, not just one? Oh, it's many of them. Many dams by Turkey and Iran. They keep Iran they have a water crisis. And what they do, they keep building dams, choking our rivers, especially um Sirwan River and uh Lesazab River, and of course some other tributary, they keep keep building dams, even they don't let the spillway waters come downstream. They even catching that and they building tunnels and uh so uh if if some researchers they want to do something about this, they need to go actually find out how many upstream countries they choke in our rivers because free, as I said, rivers should be free.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00The dams is a huge one of the biggest mistakes we do on our planet. As I mentioned, you could build dams, but you could build environmentally friendly small dams. But the way we build them in these days, we cause a lot of problems, and there will be more refugees, there will be more war, there will be more uncertainty and no fairy tale lands, and we're destroying our civilization basically. The life look at the lachtak there.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, you see that's a stork.
SPEAKER_00That's a stork. Yeah. If it wasn't like this, there would be many more storks and there's no as I mentioned. We need we need these guys to come back if we want to have a healthy lifestyle. Yeah. But what we do, we keep building hospitals. We don't see the main. Yes, yes, we don't see the main course. The people, they just saying, oh, we have a free flow. No, you don't. You don't go go pay attention what Turkey does to our river, for example. Pay attention globally, like privatizing rivers, Coca-Cola, they do it, other companies. Look, this water is free. They put it in the bottle and they sell it to us. And they call it, oh, I have a company, I'm I'm I'm selling water. You don't sell water, you sell plastics. Yes. Water is free.
SPEAKER_02Water is free.
SPEAKER_00It's created by by I I I can go drink this one uh right straight away. But 100 meters downstream probably you cannot because there's humans started and lifestyle here. So I think we need to recognize the problem that that may be um the recipe for solution in the future. The problem is we have in these days because we're so busy with um wrongdoing and wrong lifestyles. Chasing other goals. Exactly. Making ourselves sick and the money we create we are and spending it on our health. No, if you have a healthy organ and lifestyles, it's all money. It's all here, temporary, and and please pay attention and be good to earth, be good to the river. And when you die, if you there is another chance to live, if you be good to the earth, you might come back again and uh or you'll go to heaven, yeah.
SPEAKER_01So the the problem here in Kurdistan to the rivers, is it only sewage and other small-scale pollution, or do we have industrial pollution also?
SPEAKER_00Absolutely, industrial pollution. If you look at it after 2003, if you look at the way we dig oil wells, the way we export and import, the way we eat, the way we uh build things, um, is really wrong. It's it it you go towards south and you will see more and more and more. And Iraq, Kurdistan, people they think, oh, uh all these Arab people, they come in here. Of course they're gonna come here. Of course, people they they they go upstream where the f the the fresher water, yeah, and if you like it or not, and this is is gonna cause a lot of uncertainty. Like, for example, you create more refugees, like you go to Germany, oh we don't like you, refugee. But yeah, stop all the war, for example, and create that the platform. What is the problem? Personally, I know all the problems. We are in a solution mood, but who are you gonna talk to to make the solution? These people, all the millionaires, and I had this conversation with there. There is the fake environmentalists, there is the fake intellectual people, there's the fake doctors, fake engineers, for example, building fake dams, and morality is we're losing it. People, they're not honest. They are like all these fake prayers, fake this is the problem.
SPEAKER_01You mean there is fake environmentalism to greenwashing everything, destroying nature and doing some plantation stuff?
SPEAKER_00Absolutely. All the millionaires and billionaires, they hire somebody's expertise to clean their froth, to say uh good things about the factories, good things about their businesses, and that's what's slowing us down as an environmentalist. They should come to people to experts in the field. Yeah, we not a fake expert. Exactly. You bring the fake expert. Come at Oxford University, they do that. You cannot do research on, for example, Axel Mobiles and all these uh BPs, big giant companies, they don't let any uh quality research on, for example, uh fossil fuel like uh the I mean it's only hundred years old. Uh this destroying our planet and for example all this uh um uh uh injury like like um we digging, we keep digging and and uh and we don't stop all this uh cannon and and digging is uh it has to be stopped, and because we we we we just greedy, we greedy, we don't know why we greedy. We need to slow down all that greediness and and and appreciate what we have left.
SPEAKER_01Do do you uh know if we have had any small rivers here or creeks that have completely disappeared in your own lifetime?
SPEAKER_00Oh absolutely, this is one of them. I mean this year we had this is appeared. Sometimes this water doesn't appear at all.
SPEAKER_01But this has been we are still in winter and it was there was a lot of rain, that's why there is that's why we have this a lot of rain and snow on Piramagrum Mountain.
SPEAKER_00As I mentioned, this mountain is 45 kilometer arranged mountains all the way to Dukan. Yeah, so it's holding this fresh, beautiful snow. Uh part of it it goes to Tabil River, goes all the way to Smaller Zap from Chemirazan, and part of it is coming to this side and creating this.
SPEAKER_01This is snow water basically.
SPEAKER_00It's a snow juice. I call it snow juice. This is you can drink it straight away. And all this mountain, these politicians and businessmen, they're melting down our mountain. They don't realize that's your barat, that's your filteration. Yeah, that's your natural AC. Yeah. Idiot. This is this is really bad. What they do, yeah, and we need to teach this in the university, AUIS, Comar University, in Jihan University, in old in Erbil, and we need to make a program to tell the new generation what we do to our nature, you do it to your body. That's why they keep opening hospital. That's why, and and let's wait for mental problems. Because your nature is your mental stability. That's true. If you for me, it is working, okay? I found a trek. Sometimes I use this. Uh, some friends say, I feel I don't feel very well. I need injection from Peter Magro. Oh. I I I I I I don't do injection from hospitals. So I inject my body through climbing, through swimming, through staying in the night with the nature and appreciate this beautiful, beautiful drama. I don't need to watch it from national geography at home. I am inside it, I'm part of it.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I think I always say we should do the same for the new generation, is uh ourselves and the younger generation know about all kinds of birds and animals in Africa or South America through National Geographic. But they don't know anything, people here, about our own birds and mammals and nature. That's the thing, that's the problem.
SPEAKER_00And I did the fish survey uh on nine rivers, which is creating the Rwandus uh river, which call it they call it Azadi River. I did the fish um survey on those rivers. I found only 12 species. Wow. Took me two years to finish that project. Yeah, 12 only. Is that too little or too many? It's so little. In Iraq, apparently I worked with this expertise, the fish uh scientist from German. He was saying, uh at least we have in the history of the book he was uh researching, uh 150 species still exist in Iraq, but it's not. It's not that we keep losing them. This is fish, okay? I'm talking about a fish. If you look, euphrate soft shelf turtle is endangered species. We lost it in the entire world, okay? We have it in Iraq, we're eating them now, and they are going to die that completely. We used to have lion in here, as you see in some of the Imam Ali's pictures, you know, there's a lion in the world.
SPEAKER_01Some old stories as well, yeah.
SPEAKER_00Absolutely. We used to have pure like biodiversity suitable for in 19. I heard in the 1980s they have spotted barefoot prints in Parkia Azadi in Suleimani. Wow, that's city center now. In the 1980s, um when the snow actually in the winter, they have spotted barefoot print in there. Um and now you have to go to Kandil or Penjin and the mountains, which is probably minefields, and they survive there because human doesn't go there. So wherever humans go, we uh hunt in the wrong way, we do fishing in the wrong way. We we do we bomb, we use bomb for fishing, we use poison for fishing. We we in south south Iraq still they use electric fishing. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01They tear they catch the migratory flamingos in the south of Iraq and make them soup. Thank you.
SPEAKER_00And they sell in the underground in the in animal market, they sell anything. Still? Oh yeah. Oh yeah, you can they sell it for$100, flamingo. Wow. And you see some other really rare species birds they catch, and so we hardly actually uh this this is used to be the cradle of everything, civilization suitable for all the birds. I mean, I witnessed that. I witnessed this free-flowing river was a lifeline for all entire Suleimani, Chemikanakawa as well, and all the cares, and we lost them all of it.
SPEAKER_01It's unfortunate that you were born near this river, you saw it with your own eyes when it was like a forest and birds and everything, and you are still here. But this is the worst state you have seen it in your life.
SPEAKER_00Absolutely, absolutely, and it's getting worse and worse and worse. We we have lost this river. I mean, last four or five years it was disappeared completely, but this year it's coming back because right now we have an exhibition about this. Hopefully, when we go, uh I will show you uh the day exhibition.
SPEAKER_01I was going to ask uh you also kayak or paddle? Which one is that?
SPEAKER_00I do I do kayaking, I do paddling, I do rafting.
SPEAKER_01In different rivers in Kurdistan. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And you've done them all? Yes, most of it. Most of it. Um but in different seasons, I assume.
SPEAKER_00Absolutely. Like, for example, Lhasab, I have started rafting uh a couple of years we did that uh from the Iranian border when when the uh river actually from Mashan village entered Kurdistan territory. Um we kayaked from there all the way to Rania, for example, and swim all the way from Rania to um to Dukan Dam, 45 kilometers. And after Dukan Dams, we always kayak and raft all the way to Taktak and to Altonko. As much as you can. Oh yeah, yeah, we we do, and we we and south listen south of Iraq is a little bit different, it's difficult and it's different law uh and corruptions, but we have done greater zap rafting and we have done uh the the Rwandus River uh and you have a goal behind these uh raftings and swims, is to draw attention to the situation of water in Kurdistan. That and scientific research as well. Case study. For example, if I want to prove it, uh like for example, if you ask somebody, say where the Rwandus sewages go, you have to kayak to the river to find all the sewage line from the the state of Rwandus come to the river. So we do kayaking and rafting professionally because of our research and to knowing. If you want to know this river, you cannot just use a drone or you have to go through it. Yes. So finding all the threats. So we as a waterkeeper, we exist 370 waterkeepers around the world. We all know how to raft, kayak, swim, and um yeah, canoeing, uh even Kalak. We have a museum we will go in a minute. We know all the different boats because Kurdish boat is Kalak. If you go to south, they have Mashchouf, they have Tarada, for example, is different. So there is a time. Of Kurdish raft or boat. It's a raft. Exactly. Is Kalak is the modern raft? Because Kalak, basically, you bring 10 goat skin, you make it inflatable, you blow it. I'll show you later. So you put you attach it to the woods, it never capsized. And you go through it. So until 100 years ago, all the way from uh Diyarbakr and Adana uh Batman and Hassan Kiv, Jazeira, all the way from there with the Kurdish Kalak, they kayaked, they sorry, they raft, there's a modern raft, all the way from Hassan Kaif to Basra to Baghdad, selling their goods. Some of the kalaks like they put hundred like hundreds goat skins and it's carrying like sheep, goods, ton of things, ton. And sometimes they build a room in the middle of it for sleeping overnight. So it took them six days because the because of the free-flowing river. But nowadays, if you want to do that, no way you can do that because of dams, borders, countries, miseries, al-Qaiders, ISIS, conflicts, checkpoint. Oh my god, it's no way you can do that. So, what does that mean? The water was a transportation for everything, culture, religions.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, clean transportation. Absolutely clean.
SPEAKER_00If you compare it to trucks and lorries, the river is the cleanest form of environmentally friendly elements for connecting humans, whatever you see out, there is an awadani. Whenever you see river, fresh water, there will be beautiful humans and making beautiful lifestyle. But we no longer actually treat it like the way we used to. So if you wanna, for example, if you go to Hassan Cave, they all speak Arabic. You're thinking, how did that happen? Because of the river. Because they had to learn the language, they had to share the religions, cultures, and everything. That's how we connected. 60 yeah, 5,000 years ago, how did we reach to Australia? Because of water, because of river. River took us to the sea and finding the seas, and we thought about oh, there might be life up there. So we use the goat skin and cow skins for transportation basically, and it's the oldest way. So Kurdish boat is different to southern Iraq's boat, so we have different boats.
SPEAKER_01So here's there anyone still in use or or are they are only in museums, these Kurdish boats?
SPEAKER_00And we don't use Kalak's anymore. Uh we use Kalak for with the inner tube. Yeah. But no goat skin. We don't even have any expertise to make goat skin. So the museum we have, I had to go to Kirmashan and uh La Roshalatla in Kurdistan in Iran to bring some goat skin. Uh we lost that. We nobody goat skin. Yeah, yeah, we don't we don't even know how to make the goat skin inflatable. It takes three months at least, and it's a very special way to do it. Uh, but we lost that skill, and it's it's it's been going on for thousands and thousands of years, that technique. Um so we know all of this because of we had to learn it, uh we had to um yeah, be with the river and flow with it.
SPEAKER_01Okay, one last question before we go to the museum because I want to see that furnished raft. And how many uh waterkeepers are there in Iraq or Kurdistan? Is it you or have you trained some people in the last 10-15 years to work in this field? We have trained a lot of young people.
SPEAKER_00There's um like uh I I brought the first paddle board uh to Kurdistan and Iraq in 2007, 8, 7, and um and of course I started boating. Uh now I know thousand young people they because we sell paddleboard as well. So uh thousand young, good, healthy young peoples, they are paddling with a paddleboard. And we don't like jet skis, and that's not our culture. Um that's we we sell good boats, we we attract, we we really educate. I would say there is hundreds of water keepers out there, but officially because of the lack of fund, I cannot employ them, but they're there. They are the young soldiers, they come in up to protect the environment, I'm hoping. So we create, we don't even that some people they think we indoctrinate, we brainwash it, but in a nice way. I mean, I uh they think I've been brainwashed because of we 370 water keepers. The movement started in in the United States in the 1980s, and the movement started with uh Robert F. Kennedy.
SPEAKER_01Oh, I was going to ask, is it part of his uh campaign or project? RFK?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And uh uh Bobby Kennedy started the movement, but now he's in the Ministry of Health for the Trump's cabinet, unfortunately. But um, yeah, he he he created all the water keepers, and um of course every year when when I used to go there, um I love his speech, I love his knowledge, and of course he always says, We're not here to break the law. Yeah we're here to force the law. There is a law for this river. There is the law, take these guys accountable for what they do. But if we don't force it, if we don't force this beautiful environmental law we have internationally and in here as well, Iraqi law, Kurdistan environmental laws in here is much way beautiful than actually its details, but we don't force it, we don't practice it. That's the problem. If I have a power, I take these people accountable, for example. If I have a power, but in a nice way, because this is my life, this is my grand-grandparents' life, I should protect it. But because of Lockoff not having power and good lawyers and having a very uh corrupt system, um I still we haven't even taken one company, even one company accountable for uh for all the bad, wrong things they do. All the way from Iraq downstream, go to the southern in the marshlands. We all all these companies, householders, industrial waste, hospital waste, we don't filter heavy waters, they're all criminal. To me, they are breaking the law, and there is law for that. When we're gonna practice it, hopefully, one day.
SPEAKER_01Hopefully, thank you so very much. I really appreciate this. Thank you. Let's if you have time, please let's go to the museum.
SPEAKER_00Absolutely, it's it's very close, and they will be very pleased as well, and they're more than happy to be able to do it.
SPEAKER_01And before we go, I should mention that you said your dog is part of your uh work. Yes, basically. He is a she is uh in an expert in finding sewage water.
SPEAKER_00Yes, they they like what they've been trained. I mean, I've been trained, and he's been trained by me, and she's new trained. Uh so uh yes. So they detect it and they know where it comes from, where it merges into the river. Absolutely. If you look at the little one, look how curious with the fresh water, anything is coming down. So slowly, slowly, this is gonna be a new soldier. Trained as well. Yeah, I trained her him as well. But uh, we all have dogs, 370 waterkeepers. 60% of us is female waterkeepers around the world. So we exist in 45 countries, we all have a dog. And dogs is the best companion for the humans, and and and and unfortunately, dogs really badly been treated in our societies, but we're not. This is this is the life.
SPEAKER_01If you live and work in nature, you really need a dog. I must say that because I'm the same way. It's like your best, you're everything in nature.
SPEAKER_00Absolutely, and everything's for me. Um, like yesterday we were walking uh with uh cookies little, sometimes she's uh he's silly. He was destroying like the ants coming out and uh their lands, and I said, No, leave them alone, you know, they have a right to live too. So everything is in nature, it's there for a reason, and there is no mistake in the nature. And we cannot destroy, and we should walk on this planet like really be carefully, it's so fragile because this ecosystem's it's been million, million years to balance this ecosystem to make it suitable for humans to live in. What we do to it in the last hundred, hundred and fifty years, we completely change in our ecosystem and destroy it.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, exactly. What's sad is that an excavator or a machine can destroy in 10 hours what has taken nature one million years to whether it's a gorge or a rock or something, in three hours you could destroy what has taken a million years.
SPEAKER_00Very sad. Absolutely, and another thing is war. Yeah, war, war. Politicians, they need to stop. If they want to have a better future for their kids, stop all the wars because if you look at the 1991s, the Gulf War, the amount of emissions and bombs they explode, it was the same amount in the Second World War. Just only in Iraq. That's why since that we have so the cancer rate, the the the MS, ME, all these health problems we have is just unbelievably going up and up and up.
SPEAKER_01And I think impact of war, they they last decades. It's not that the temporary impact. A bomb that was dropped, let's say in 1990, it could still have effect today, I think.
SPEAKER_00I we found last week we found the big missile in uh Jasena with these two dogs. I was hiking on the mountains uh uh in Jasana Cave and it was an explode. So for me, when I walk on some mountain, I know all the mine fields, uh otherwise, like for example, when I hike in Scotland or United States, I don't have to worry about that because they take their wars to somewhere else. It's their war. It's their war. The landmines. Exactly, exactly. Who created it? It's like uh, you know, all these guns being made. You know, the people like it pisses me off when uh European they think they feel sorry for us. I always say, no, don't feel sorry for me, you know, stop selling chemicals to Saddam. Your economy doesn't come from flowers. Holland they think, for example, oh, we sell flowers. No, you're not.
SPEAKER_01It's part of it, flowers, is it?
SPEAKER_00No, you don't sell flowers. Exactly. The flowers you show, you sell flowers and this and that, but end that what you sell. UK, they sell turbine to the dam in Turkey, for example. Stop all these dirty businesses. Otherwise, when the refugees come to your country, it's your fault. And now they know the result. Exactly. And like Merkel let 200 two million people to come in from a few years ago when the Syrian war started, she felt she knows, and they know that there's all of this politician. This is the problem. Economists they have to stop. They're like relying on war because the war is the fastest way to bring the economy up. Selling like Trump does. I mean, it was obvious he came to Saudi Arabia and he came to the dirty businesses. If you keep doing that, so don't moan about oh, there is refugees coming, they come into us, they come in. No, you messing it up. If you throw this two blocks of birds there, what are they gonna do? They're gonna fly away.
SPEAKER_01Exactly.
SPEAKER_00You because I'm traumatized, all Iraqi people we traumatize, we refugees. I I don't know, I I had to leave in 1996 because of civil war, because of the destructions of everybody was killing each other, and I had to leave, but now I'm back. Okay, and so now you are fighting another war. Absolutely, and this is the scariest one. This is the scariest one. Nothing to compare to this war. The water war, environmental, uh like climate change war, is gonna be one of the toughest, and you will see it.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and we'll have more victims than any other traditional war.
SPEAKER_00Absolutely, absolutely, because this is this is it's not gonna be pleasant and it's not gonna be fun. It's already happening. If you look at the basra in 2018, there was water was contaminated in two days. 210,000 people got sick, ended up in the hospital in two days just because of the tap water was contaminated, the sea water going back to the river. There was very drought that year, and we paid a huge price. We went to demonstrations, 700 people they lost their life because of, you know, they had to control the demonstration. So that that was the big call at that time.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, those things should be connected to each other. These demonstrations or poisonings did not come out of the blue. There was the cause, and the cause was pollution and all what you say, what we do to the environment, the final victim is ourselves.
SPEAKER_00Absolutely. We we like you and guys said, we dig in our own grave by ourselves actually, by destroying uh because as I mentioned, you are nothing without all these birds and biodiversity, because you're gonna be alone in the end. We're gonna be alone and we're gonna pay a huge price.
SPEAKER_01Thank you so much. Thank you, Kage. Amazing. Wow.