Saving the vanishing forests of Iraq's Kurdistan

The nursery in Sarchinar in the Kurdish city of Sulaimaniyah is part of efforts to battle the destructive effects of deforestation in the region. "Almost 50 percent of forests have been lost in Kurdistan in 70 years," said Nyaz Ibrahim of the UN's World Food Programme (WFP). She attributed the loss to "water scarcity, rising temperatures, irregular decreasing rainfall and also fire incidents". The loss is catastrophic, as the Kurdistan region is home to 90 percent of forests in Iraq, which has...