THE talk now is of rebuilding Iraq. How to once again fuse its fractured peoples, cultures and religions into a coherent society with a stable economy.

But for one very special corner of the country, a plan already exists. A small group of campaigners, backed by 20 expert scientists, has devised a way to restore the lower Mesopotamian marshlands, the largest wetland ecosystem in the Middle East, to their former glory. The marshes, which capture water and silt pouring from the mountains of Turkey and Iran, were the crucible of Western civilisation, home to the great cities of Babylon and Ur. Biblical scholars place the Garden of Eden here, and the Great Flood. Now the waters are all but gone, drained and poisoned as part of a genocidal campaign by Saddam Hussein's regime against the Marsh Arabs who had lived there for millennia.

But there is a way to get ...