ABSTRACT
Wetlands and shallow-water lakes have always served as convenient refugia for peoples eeing persecution. The relief image in the British Museum of cowering Akkadians hiding from Assyrian warmongering despots amidst the tall marsh grasses in southern Mesopotamia (Young 1977; France 2007) is a scene oft repeated throughout history in many places around the world besides Saddam’s modern Iraq (nowhere more famously perhaps than the rst settlements in the Venetian lagoon; France 2008, 2010). Indeed, two particular examples-the Tonle Sap Great Lake in Cambodia and Lake Titicaca in Peru-bear striking resemblance to the situation in Iraq (e.g., overwater living, heritage water body of national importance and worldwide ecological uniqueness, surrounding archaeological ruins of global historical signicance, burgeoning tourism industries, and rampant development) and can perhaps offer insight into what future concerns might be worthy of attention once societal peace and environmental restoration are achieved in Iraq. Ecotourism is recognized as a means to conserve the environment, educate and support local populations, and create an awareness of fragile and precious ecosystems in the rest of the world (Liu and Syariffudin 2003). However, the major challenge is to initiate such a program in a region such as Iraq (and also Cambodia and Peru) where a strong foundation
Introduction ............................................................................................................ 227 Tonle Sap Great Lake .............................................................................................228 Lake Titicaca .......................................................................................................... 272 Conclusion ............................................................................................................. 293 References .............................................................................................................. 293
of environmental protection has not been established. The present chapter thus serves to briey introduce these two case studies in a hope of encouraging future, detailed research on the interesting parallels between them and what could evolve in southern Iraq.
