|
2020-11-16 Iraq
|
|
Nearly 50,000 acres of Kurdistan Region land torched by Turkey’s bombs this summer: report
|
[Rudaw] Ottoman Turkish and Iranian bombs are likely responsible for setting alight nearly 50,000 acres of land in the Kurdistan Region this summer, according to a new report analyzing satellite imagery, making this one of the worst years for wildfires and sparking concerns for the future of the Region’s biodiversity.
The Netherlands-based NGO PAX compared reports of Ottoman Turkish and Iranian artillery fire and Arclight airstrike
...KABOOM! ...
s with satellite imagery showing areas where fires had swept through vegetation between June 1 and October 1. "We found 32 out of 81 reported incident locations were overlapped with burned areas recognized from satellite imagery, with a total of 49,568 acres of burned land that are likely to be linked with the military campaign based on those numbers," read the report published on Friday.
The Sick Man of Europe Turkey
...the occupiers of Greek Asia Minor...
and Iran
...a theocratic Shiite state divided among the Medes, the Persians, and the (Arab) Elamites. Formerly a fairly civilized nation ruled by a Shah, it became a victim of Islamic revolution in 1979. The nation is today noted for spontaneously taking over other countries' embassies, maintaining whorehouses run by clergymen, involvement in international drug trafficking, and financing sock puppet militias to extend the regime's influence. The word Iran is a cognate form of Aryan. The abbreviation IRGC is the same idea as Stürmabteilung (or SA). The term Supreme Guide is a the modern version form of either Duce or Führer or maybe both. They hate Jews Zionists Jews. Their economy is based on the production of oil and vitriol...
both violate the Kurdistan Region’s borders on a regular basis in pursuit of armed Kurdish groups based in the Zagros Mountains. This summer, the Ottoman Turkish military carried out an intensive air and ground war against the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and the Free Life Party of Kurdistan (PJAK). The PKK is an gang fighting for greater cultural and political rights for Kurds in Turkey and PJAK is its Kurdish-Iranian affiliate.
"With increased droughts and rising temperatures, the risks of rapidly spreading wildfires in Iraqi Kurdistan as a result of military operations have been increasing over the last couple of years. Our quick analysis of the Ottoman Turkish operations against the PKK shows how they've led to large areas of burned lands as the intense shelling in these dry areas directly causes fires," said Wim Zwijnenburg, an author of the PAX report.
"With limited firefighting means in remote areas, these fires could also drive civilians from their homes, destroy their livelihoods and pose risks to firefighters as these areas are littered with unwent kaboom! ordnance," he added.
In many cases, villagers extinguished raging fires themselves, beating the flames out with branches. "Almost everything is gone," Omer Abd Ham, the chief of Lere village in Erbil province’s Barzan area, told Rudaw in July about a fire that had been burning for five days, destroying farmlands and forests and killing wild animals.
Likewise, villagers living near Zakho in northern Duhok province put out fires that burned through their abandoned homes and orchards in September . The residents had already fled, driven out by fear of festivities between Turkey and the PKK.
Environmental officials in Duhok and Sulaimani confirmed that 2020 was a bad year for fires.
It was "one of the worst years for wildfires," according to Dilshad Mohammed, head of the Duhok office of the Environment Board. "We have summer wildfires almost every year. However,
a lie repeated often enough remains a lie...
this year we had more wildfires because of Turkey’s military operation."
The chief of Duhok’s environmental police, Brig. Gen. Kamil Harki, estimated that in recent years, the number of wildfires has increased by as much as 70 percent, because of the Turkey-PKK conflict. "Bombardments are still ongoing, most recently two days ago," he said.
The military activity is putting added stress onto an already strained ecosystem that includes grasslands, shrublands, and forests. The Kurdistan Region is a biodiversity hotspot because of its diverse topography and location at a meeting point between climates. It is home to the majority of Iraq’s woodlands. Just 1.4 percent of Iraq is forested and 93 percent of that is located in the Kurdistan Region, but it is disappearing at an alarming rate.
Between 1999 and 2018, the Kurdistan Region lost 2.2 million acres to fires and deforestation, according to government figures. This summer, PAX detected another 298,750 acres of vegetation that were burned. The NGO estimates 20 percent of the Region’s vegetation has been lost to fires and logging since 2014 and 47 percent since 1999.
All of the wildfires are caused by human activity, according to Mohammed. In addition to those started by bombing campaigns, some are accidental, sparked by farmers doing prescribed burns of their fields after the harvest or careless picnickers with barbeques and shisha pipes. Others are deliberate, set by people who want to clear or repurpose land. And in the summer, when no rain falls for three or four months, the landscape is tinder-dry and fires can quickly flare out of control.
Forests are also being lost because of the economic crisis brought on by low oil prices, the coronavirus (aka COVID19 or Chinese Plague)
 ...the twenty first century equivalent of bubonic plague, only instead of killing off a third of the population of Europe it kills 3.4 percent of those who notice they have it. It seems to be fond of the elderly, especially Iranian politicians and holy men...
pandemic, and a budget dispute with the federal government. "People are cutting and burning trees because they can’t afford oil," said Harki.
Recovering these damaged sites will take a long time and require an investment the cash-strapped government cannot afford to make. Officials have been complaining for years of a lack of budget to protect and maintain the forests. "While it is very easy to burn these forests, it takes just seconds or minutes, planting a tree takes up to ten years," said Hemin Kamar Khan, spokesperson for Sulaimani’s forestry police.
PAX’s Zwijnenburg warned that with the climate crisis, the situation is going to get a lot worse. "As the climate crisis pushes up heat and drought, military operations by all warring parties can result in more humanitarian suffering and environmental degradation that impacts lives, livelihoods and the future of the people of Kurdistan." 
|
Posted by trailing wife 2020-11-16 03:54||
||
Front Page|| [11 views ]
Top
File under: Sublime Porte
|
|
Posted by ed in texas 2020-11-16 20:32||
2020-11-16 20:32||
Front Page
Top
|
|
19:33 DarthVader
19:15 Procopius2k
18:46 Spomonter+Speaking+for+Boskone8031
18:28 M. Murcek
18:28 Ululating Platypus
18:19 Rex Mundi
18:17 swksvolFF
18:12 Rex Mundi
18:11 Ululating Platypus
17:53 jpal
17:52 Frank G
17:44 Huputch Hatrack4765
17:39 jpal
17:38 ed in texas
17:23 jpal
17:00 Deacon+Blues
17:00 trailing wife
16:51 Deacon+Blues
16:44 Gleremble+Bucket3559
16:26 Procopius2k
16:24 Procopius2k
16:17 Procopius2k
16:16 Deacon+Blues
16:15 Procopius2k
|
