Desertification renders 60% of Iraq's soil unusable

Shafaq News – Baghdad

Approximately 60% of Iraq's land has become unusable due to drought and desertification, the Green Iraq Observatory reported on Sunday.

Omar Abdul Latif, a member of the observatory, emphasized to Shafaq News that without immediate interventions, the environmental crisis could worsen, potentially increasing non-arable land to 70% in the coming years.

Earlier, the Strategic Center for Human Rights highlighted that Iraq has lost nearly 30% of its productive agricultural land over the past three decades due to climate change, creating serious threats to food security and sustainable development.

The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) also estimated that Iraq’s forested areas now cover just 8,250 square kilometers, or roughly 2% of the country’s total territory, stressing that around 100,000 dunams* are lost each year to desertification.

*1 dunam = 1,000 square meters

Read more: Green turning grey: Inside Iraq's accelerating desertification