We've battled here about military and "defending Canada".

Thi is the kind of project that as far as I'm concerned goes so much further to make the world safer and the Canadian flag a welcome sight.

Jul.*4, 2004. 01:00*AM

With water comes hope
Project sign of Iraq's renewal Canadians help rebuild marshes

OLIVIA WARD
FEATURE WRITER

I gained the impression of a delightful and unexpected world: of narrow waterways winding through the tufted reeds, duck circling above still lagoons, the crying of geese, a village of reed houses clustered on the water, a hum of voices, and the incessant passage of canoes ... the stillness of a world that had never heard an engine. — British writer/explorer Wilfred Thesiger, 1950.

The great freshwater marshes of Iraq once covered an area the size of Lake Ontario. And it was there, in the southern reaches of the Mesopotamian desert, that the milestones of human civilization were planted, and the fabled Garden of Eden was said to lie.

But in the early 1990s, more than 5,000 years after the first marsh people threaded their reed canoes through curtains of lush foliage, Saddam Hussein began to drain the waterways and contaminated the region with pesticides that would poison their plant and animal life.

The massive ecological attack was part of a plan to strip Saddam's Shiite opponents of weapons-smuggling transit routes from neighbouring Iran, and hiding places that he feared would become strongholds of unrest in southern Iraq.

Its effect was to turn the Middle East's largest wetlands into blowing sand and dust, with patches of tumbleweed and thin soil sown with wheat and barley. As the disaster unfolded, more than 300,000 people were forced from their land, their homes burned behind them.

"Looking at the satellite images was like a kick in the stomach," says Suzie Alwash, a California geologist who, with her Iraqi engineer husband Azzam, has fought more than five years to restore the marshes.

"The area wasn't just damaged, it was gone. When I saw it I knew our children would never have the chance to go kayaking in the desert."

But the couple's persistence, against all odds, paid off. After the fall of Saddam, an international project was launched to salvage the marshlands, their ecology and culture. Funded by the Canadian International Development Agency, Italy, the U.S. State Department and international charities, it will have expert help from a team of University of Waterloo scientists, working with Iraqis and international colleagues. more (http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&call_pageid=971358637177&c=Article&cid=1088892610447)

This versus a British submarine sitting in dry dock :mad:

I know my preference in a heartbeat.
Anyone else with good examples of Canada winning hearts and minds abroad???

I know there was some very good sustainable appropriate technology efforts from down east. :cool: