The Kurdistan Regional Government’s Ministry of Agriculture conducted a survey of green sites in the Region in cooperation with the GIS Center at Zakho University, Salahaddin University, and Garmian University.
The survey has also relied on satellite images and remote sensors.
Since an earlier survey conducted by the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) in 1999, more than 2.2 million acres of forest land in the Kurdistan Region has been destroyed.
Dildar Abdullah Malazada, head of the forestry department at the Ministry of Agriculture and Water Resources, said: “The survey shows more than 2.2 million acres of natural and manmade forest in the Kurdistan Region were destroyed over the past 19 years due to fires, deforestation, violating forest-designated areas, climate change, and lack of necessary budget to protect and maintain these forests. This is a loss of 47 percent of the forests we had in the past.”
According to the survey, green areas now make up just 12.44 percent of Kurdistan Region territory. The province of Duhok has the highest rate of green space (27.58 percent), following by Halabja (10.04 percent), Sulaimani (9.1 percent), and Erbil (9.05 percent).
At city level, the town of Amedi in Duhok province has the highest rate of green space (59.8 percent), while the lowest rate is in the sub-district of Semel, also in Duhok province (1.75 percent).
In Erbil province, the highest rate of green space is in Choman (13.17 percent), while the lowest rate is in Makhmour (2.49 percent).
In Sulaimani province, the highest rate is in Penjwen (18.53 percent), while the lowest in Chamchamal (4.82 percent).
In Halabja province, the highest rate is in the city of Halabja itself (10.04 percent).
In Garmian, the highest rate is in the town of Kalar (5.50 percent), while the lowest is in the town of Kifri (4.07 percent).
“According to a survey conducted in 1957 by W. G. Chapman, a British scholar, the rate of green space in what is now called the Kurdistan Region was 30 percent. This rate dropped to 23.46 percent in the FAO survey. The current rate of green space in the Kurdistan Region stands at 12.44 percent,” Malazada said.
“The economy of the Kurdistan Region has suffered losses worth millions of dollars due to the loss of all these forests. It is not easy to make up for this loss, which has even affected the environment in the Kurdistan Region,” he added.
According to the survey, 1.3 million acres of forest have been burned in the past eight years. The highest rate of forest fires was over the past three years – representing 559,469 acres, almost 57 percent of all burned territory.
“The financial crisis and war on ISIS took their toll on forests in recent years. The necessary budget to protect and maintain natural and manmade forests was not dedicated due to the financial crisis in the past four years. And due to the war on ISIS, the police force tasked with protecting forests was reassigned to protecting government institutions. Nearly 40 percent of the loss of forests happened in the past five years,” Malazada said.
It took three years for the ministry of agriculture to finish its survey. After it was completed, ministry officials visited the site to verify the findings.
“Turkish airstrikes and Iranian artillery shelling are also some of the reasons behind our forests being burned and destroyed. The lack of necessary government budget to build fire barriers and poor fire extinguishing equipment are also contributing factors in this matter,” said Abdullah Hussein, head of Erbil forests.
“There are many reasons that explain the decline in green sites, namely the increasing rate of population, expansion of cities, oil companies, deliberately burning forests, Turkish airstrikes and Iranian artillery bombardments,” said Faruq Yusif, Duhok’s head of forestry.
