A positive environmental story coming out of Iraq:
Iraqi environmental officials said Thursday that part of their country's fabled marshlands have been restored with international help, but further effort is needed to revive the ecosystem.
"Our objectives are to restore ecosystems in the marshlands, and also to control and monitor factors affecting bio-diversity," said Iraqi Deputy Environment Minister Tauma Helou, who was in Japan for a seminar on marshlands.
Believed by some to be the original biblical "Garden of Eden," the marshlands nearly vanished in the 1990s, when former dictator Saddam Hussein drained much of the Mesopotamian waters.
