ERBIL, Kurdistan Region--Kurds across the Kurdistan Region marked World Environment Day on Wednesday with a street-cleaning campaign.
“The campaign goes on in all four provinces of the Kurdistan Region,” said Newroz Mawlood Amin, Minister of Municipalities and Tourism in the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG).
In Erbil, hundreds came out to launch a campaign to clean areas around the capital city and warn about environmental issues.
“Cleaning the environment is a national duty and everyone must be responsible to clean and protect the environment,” said Arez Zyad, a teenager participating in the cleanup.
The Peshmerga also attended the event saying that, due to the war with the Islamic State, they could not protect Kurdistan’s environment as much as it was needed.
“As Environment Peshmerga we are now at the front lines, therefore we have not been able to protect the places and the nature as before,” said Goran Omer, a member of the Kurdistan Region force assigned to protect the environment, including policing garbage disposal.
The event was funded by the European Union’s special budget for World Environment Day, which is monitored by the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) and organized by the Local Area Development Program (LADP).
“Fortunately the municipality ministry of KRG and Erbil governorate cooperated with us very well for this campaign,” said Dr. Anwar Younis, head of the civil society organization, one of the organizers of the event.
Carrying full blue trash bags to a designated point, Younis added that local and international organizations and NGOs also supported the event.
Participants, divided into three zones, cleaned some 40,000 square meters of areas around the city.
“The aim of the campaign was to raise awareness about the significance of the environment,” Younis said.
Wearing a white T-shirt with the slogan of the campaign and offering water to those attendees who have broken their fast, 10-year old Sima Zyad from Erbil said that she attended the event to keep Kurdistan clean.
“I participated in the event to clean the environment of Kurdistan and prevent it from being polluted again,” said Sima. “I will tell my friends at school how important our environment and nature is.”
Cleaning up trash is just a first step in taking care of the environment Zyad Hamad, a social activist told Rudaw English, stating that they have plans to start recycling projects in the Kurdistan Region.
“As civil society organizations, we have prepared a couple of proposals for recycling trash in Kurdistan,” he said.
Hamad emphasized the significance of recycling centers for the region saying that by burning garbage, the environment is being polluted by the smoke. According to the Ministry of Municipalities some 9,000 tons of garbage are being burned or buried in the Kurdistan Region every day.
The plans for a recycling project have been stalled for economic reasons but Hamad is hopeful they can be resurrected in the near future.
“Unfortunately due to the financial crisis, we have not been able to complete the project,” he said. “But there are efforts to sign a contract with a foreign company to open a recycling center in the Kurdistan Region.”
Taking down campaign banners and putting them into a pickup truck filled with brochures after a successful day, Fares Murad, one of the organizers of the event, said that their goal was just to tell people how important our environment is.
“No matter how much area we cleaned and how much trash we gathered, our aim was to raise awareness,” said Murad.
World Environment Day is usually celebrated on June 5 every year, but since the Kurdistan Region requested to take part as an independent entity, the program was postponed to Wednesday.
