Okay so it isn't exactly new news but it was certainly news to me when I watched a documentary about it last night. Plenty of people know that Iraq used to have some pretty fertile wetlands, I always assumed they were lost to desertification, not the actions of a dictator trying to essentially kill off the people who lived off of the marshes, he undertook a truly massive project and drained 90% of the wetlands. Thankfully these wetlands are proving to be rather resilient and the extensive efforts to restore them are having some impressive success. It isn't all good, much like the restoration of Iraq itself progress is slow and full of unexpected setbacks but the fact that there is any progress at all is pretty remarkable.
This article is a couple of years old but does give an overview of the whole situation, all of the more recent articles I've found are pretty much just about very specific parts of the project.
