Much-needed rain is bringing life back to the ancient ecosystem of the Huwaizah Marshes, after years of devastation.

A fishing boat in the Hawizeh Marsh in Maysan province, southern Iraq, after water returned due to rainfall following a long period of drought. [Hussein Faleh/AFP]

A fishing boat glides across the waters of Iraq’s southern marshes, sending ripples shimmering over the once-parched wetlands, now revived by long-awaited rains.

Running through almost the entire Huwaizah Marshes, the returning water is dotted with patches of greenery, with buffaloes soaking in it or wandering slowly nearby, grazing on the lush grass.

Overhead, birds of many kinds flutter, their movements mirrored in the still water below, part of the protected biodiversity of these millennia-old Mesopotamian wetlands.

Years of drought, blamed on climate change and upstream dams in neighbouring countries, have ravaged Iraq’s marshes – the reputed home of the biblical Garden of Eden – nestled between the mighty Tigris and…