IRAN, SOUTHWESTERN

A final outcry before it all disappears. In the Middle East, largely unnoticed by the rest of the world, the cradle of our occidental culture is falling apart. In the marshlands of Mesopotamia the nomadic people are waging a silent war against the army and oil industry. Without a sound, they glide with their boats through the few remaining waterways on the Iran-Iraq border. The river and reed landscape that was once fertile and rich in wildlife has lost ground to a barren and dusty salt desert. Already 90 percent of the Al-Azim marshlands have been irrevocably destroyed. A stirring account of an overlooked natural disaster. Tina Janker