12

The Revenge of the Sacred Sedge

To a hungry migrating bird making its way south to its winter quarters, a swamp must appear like McDonald’s golden arches rising on the dusty horizon after a full day’s journey on a barren highway. There was such a swamp “rest stop” just 50 years ago, located in the middle of the Huleh Valley (see Map 4, p. 126), a productive region that straddles the upper Jordan River and sits just below the Golan Heights, north of the Sea of Galilee. That swamp, the largest and most diverse freshwater wetland in the Middle East, was described in 1865 by the Rev. Henry Baker Tristram, English clergyman, Biblical scholar, traveler, and ornithologist, as teeming with bird life. He was there between November and March when migrating birds from tropical and temperate regions made that swamp their winter home. He said it was the most vast and impenetrable swamp he had ever visited, comprising 15,500 acres that included a papyrus swamp, a small lake, and some neighboring wetlands. In the Bible it was known as the “Waters of Merom,” famous as the place where Joshua defeated the Canaanites.

MAP 4: The Jordan River, Huleh Valley, Huleh Swamp, and Lake Amik.

The Waters of Merom were left in peace until 1954 when the Huleh Swamp and Huleh Lake were drained, leaving behind only a token papyrus swamp of 865 acres. More bad news followed in 1966 when Lake Amik—the only other freshwater habitat in Turkey—was completely drained to provide farmland and, later, an airport. The birds were forced to stop elsewhere on their migratory routes; the few that hung on in the valley were not welcomed by the new developers, and they were probably witness to two calamities that might have proved fatal if they were caught up in either.

The first was the 1967 Arab-Israeli War, a war that opened on the Syrian Front with a massive shelling of Israeli towns and farms in the Huleh Valley. A search-and-destroy mission was then successfully mounted by Israeli forces across the Golan Heights. By the war’s end over 22,000 had been killed, and Israel was about to settle down to enjoy the waters of the Jordan River when the second calamity came to pass, the disaster of the Huleh Swamp.

By draining almost the whole of the papyrus swamp in the Huleh Valley, Israel had set off a chain of environmental events that turned a large part of the region into a dead zone. This came as an unpleasant surprise for the developers, who had until then boasted in press releases and media coverage about the fact that they had wiped out a weed, a miscreant that was now nothing but a bad memory.

The only problem is that papyrus leaves behind more than a memory. It leaves a legacy of peat.

According to Tamar Zohary, coordinator of the research program that followed the events in the Huleh Valley, and her colleague, David Hambright of the Zoology Department, University of Oklahoma, swamps have existed in the valley for about 34,000 years. Though papyrus has been present only for the last 5,000 years, there was still ample time for it to accumulate the deep layer of peat that would later cause innumerable problems.

The Huleh Valley has had a long history of human settlement, and the few travel journals that mentioned it in the 1870s were lavish in their comparison of the valley to the most productive spots on earth. It was on land so holy that the Talmud said that merely walking in it can gain you a place in the “World to Come.” Within the basin, the Huleh Lake and Swamp were seen as nothing more than bottlenecks along the road to development of the valley itself. Not that the original inhabitants would think of it as heaven. In the 1830s, long before it became a region of focus, the population of the Huleh Valley consisted largely of Bedouins, Mesopotamians, former Egyptian soldiers, and runaway slaves. The Bedouin residents were described by Victorian travelers as “stunted and dwarfed, though industrious,” with fever-stricken children.

They subsisted principally by dairy farming and making mats from local papyrus stems. Malaria must have been endemic in the region, and the swamp could hardly have been thought of as anything but an evil place. Many lived in reed huts that resembled those built today by the Marsh Arabs in southern Iraq and perhaps those built in pre-dynastic Egypt.

Bedouin women carrying papyrus stems and weaving papyrus mats in the Huleh Valley, 1900s (Lib. Congress).

With the arrival of Jewish immigrants from war-torn Europe in the 1950s, action was called for; it was time to get rid of the bottleneck. Glenna Anton, a doctoral student in geography at the University of California at Berkeley, said the drainage project that resulted was heralded as a chief wonder of the Zionist effort. Once the drainage was complete, people were elated. Within a few years they had made a significant savings in water (7.4 billion gallons per year), eradicated many acres of anopheles mosquito habitat, and reclaimed appreciable land for farming.

Through the years, farmers on the slopes of the Huleh Valley have valued their deep, rich alluvial soils that are brown or gray in color. As you get closer to the bottomlands, they became more productive and darker, almost black. From films made in the ’50s during this drainage operation, it was obvious that great things were expected once the papyrus had been cleared and the swamp bottom exposed. The dark, glistening layer of organic matter they found looked like it would grow anything and everything. They thought they had struck gold. And who could blame them? Aren’t we told in gardening manuals that dark, rich organic soil is the ideal? Amateur and professional gardeners alike are encouraged to aim in that direction. But whether anyone could farm this newly exposed swamp bottom was another matter. The dark material turned out to be a deep layer of fine organic matter similar to the peat found in bogs throughout the Northern Hemisphere, most of which are sphagnum bogs, created by the aquatic moss that can hold from 16 to 26 times as much water as its dry weight.

The peat they uncovered in the Huleh Valley was composed of the organic matter that had been deposited by papyrus plants over thousands of years.

Perhaps this was the point at which the developers realized they had a problem on their hands, because peat, though excellent as a soil additive, is not a soil in itself. It doesn’t have the substance or structure. For papyrus this is no problem because the plant is able to grow on top of the peat. It does this by sending out rhizomes, strong horizontal stems that spread out in a plexus or matrix that provides support to a mass of vertical green shoots. But any of the horticultural crops that people intended to plant on this newly exposed peat would have trouble because the peat would never be able to support the roots of these plants on its own; it would have to be mixed with soil.

What they now had was 15,500 acres of peat. Deep peat. Flammable peat. Measured in cubic yards, it would amount to trillions. It was like a nightmare where you win a prize on a TV show that allows you to have as much peat as you could fit into a dump truck, only to remember while driving home that you live in a small second-floor apartment.

One solution put forward by the developers was to dig the peat out, dry it, bag it, and sell it as a soil amendment. At least that would allow them to get down to the clay soil, which generally lies deep underneath papyrus swamps. This scheme never got off the ground, though there may have been a good market for peat at that time. It is ironic that since then, Israel has developed an active greenhouse industry that uses tons of peat, all imported from Ireland.

In the ’50s, with so many problems in Israel demanding solutions, the obvious course was to put aside the peat problem—and perhaps that was the worst thing they could have done, because with time the peat began to dry, after which the problems began in earnest. Instead of pumping water out of the swamp, they should have left enough water to keep it wet until they had time to dig out the peat, or not bother. Perhaps conservation of the land might prove the most efficient use, rather than agriculture. Over the next few years it became clear that the project was headed in the direction of a massive ecological meltdown. The first indication of trouble appeared in the middle and southern parts of the basin, where severe problems began to develop because of the peat.

Peat, when found fresh in nature, is an extraordinary substance. It could almost be considered a living organism because of the way it functions. Composed of bits and pieces of the bog or swamp plants that grow in it, it pulls in everything. Like Audrey II, the voracious plant in Little Shop of Horrors, if peat could speak, its first words would be “Feed me!” As the plants and animals of a swamp die and fall into the peat, be it papyrus or sphagnum moss, the dead bits turn dark brown, and the fragile and more fleshy parts disintegrate and then decompose, feeding the organisms that live in the substrate. “Living” peat teems with life, small animals that live out their whole lives there as do worms in garden soil—and, like garden soil, peat is always “working,” or “being worked.”

Oxygen is depleted within peat, sometimes within inches of the surface. As the oxygen disappears, so do the organisms. As you go even deeper, chemical reactions take over so that in some bogs the ultimate product, way down deep, is coal.

Everything that enters the peat stays there, similar to quicksand or tar pits; nothing leaves except as a gas or by being washed out. And because oxygen is lacking and tannins are present, anything falling into the peat—especially in cold bogs—will sink down and be preserved. Bodies recovered thousands of years later are preserved fully clothed and intact, such as the 4,000-year-old man preserved in an Irish peat bog, the oldest European body ever found with skin still intact.¹ Or the Tollund Man, a naturally mummified corpse of the Pre-Roman Iron Age found in a peat bog in Denmark, which was so well-preserved that he was mistaken at the time for a recent murder victim!² Peat also holds on to inorganic nutrients, binding them to molecular surfaces or locking them into organic material, so that, as long as it stays wet, peat serves as a marvelous and efficient storehouse, which is why it is such a great soil additive, if not a soil replacement. But let it dry and it changes. You see this when you use dry peat in a garden or try to mix it with soil to fill flower pots. It stays fluffy and light and takes forever to wet. Once wet, it becomes useful as a soil additive. If it dries out, it dies and then fragments into fine particles and dust that are easily picked up by the wind. The Huleh Valley disaster was directly related to the drying of peat, and it was almost as if papyrus had planned its revenge.

As the groundwater level fell in the drained swamp, air penetrated this layer of peat, drying it and setting off microbial decomposition of the organic matter in a big way. Zohary and Hambright told me that, essentially, microorganisms were “eating” into the peat. As the mass of material diminished, the ground literally collapsed, dropping by up to 9ft in some regions. At the same time, the high rate of decomposition, like an infection, caused the temperature to rise to a fever pitch. The peat became hot enough to cause spontaneous combustion and uncontrollable underground fires that consumed surrounding material and created dangerous smoking caverns. Anyone walking on the peat at that point was in danger of falling in, and the deep, glowing pockets offered no hope of escape. After the fires, the weathered peat generated black dust that swept through the newly cleared valley in dust storms severe enough to damage crops. Other bad effects recorded by Zohary and Hambright were the disappearance of millions of migratory birds and many freshwater plants, and the loss of 119 animal species, of which 37 disappeared from Israel entirely.

An indirect problem that came from the drying was the proliferation of field mice; they burrowed into the warm, dry peat, multiplied in an uncontrolled fashion, and wreaked havoc in the valley by stripping seed crops in the fields and contaminating stored grain. Over time, farmers abandoned more and more of the drained swamp area because cultivation was no longer profitable, thereby further enhancing the rate at which these soils deteriorated.

In 1978 I was invited to tour the Israeli National Water Carrier that had been completed in June 1964, and I was impressed. This is a system designed to channel about 125 billion gallons per annum of water from various sources into the Sea of Galilee, which acts as a reservoir for the nation. In the ’70s, this water would be used for irrigation and production of electricity; only a small portion would be used for drinking. The Carrier was a massive undertaking and showed how serious the people in Israel were about efficient water use and living within their means.

Much of the water to be tapped came from the Jordan River, which draws its source from three rivers in the north (Map 4, p. 126): the Dan, Banias, and Hasbani near snow-capped Mount Hermon. The Jordan River contributes 225 billion gallons per annum to the water needs of the nation—a significant input. It was therefore a matter of concern when the water planners found out that the decomposing peat in the drained swamp could no longer hold on to inorganic nutrients, such as nitrates, phosphates, and sulfates. All of these nutrients were being washed out of the peat with the winter rains and had nowhere to go but downstream. In essence, the papyrus peat was now polluting the Sea of Galilee. Not only had papyrus taken its revenge with the initial clearing of the swamp for agriculture, which the dried peat sabotaged, but it was still at it nearly twenty years later.

Lakes and ponds in remote regions of the northern USA and Canada often remain crystal clear because of the absence of nutrients and the cold temperatures that prevail. In such water, the growth of algae is suppressed and the lakes are often described as “pristine.” Once nutrients are introduced in quantity into water, especially water that is warmed up, a rapid buildup of blue-green algae occurs in a process known as “eutrophication.” This is not a welcome sign in water; these algae are referred to as “coarse algae” for a reason. Single-celled and bacteria-like, they form filaments and slimy clusters that clog filters and require the water engineer to add more and more disinfectant. Some of the blue-green algae are toxic to fish and humans, and, as often happens, even when they are not at harmful levels they give the water a bad, musty taste.

The first signs of eutrophication are “blooms” of algae that soon die back, leaving dead cells and encouraging bacterial growth. This consumes oxygen and turns the water cloudy; light no longer penetrates the water, and as a result the normal aquatic fauna and flora, microscopic animals and plants, die off or are replaced with “coarse” species. The overall effect is to turn the water into a turbid green soup with high bacterial load and increased dissolved and suspended organic matter. This makes for poor drinking water, and it is a disaster for recreational purposes (which is often the base of tourism, itself a powerful foreign exchange earner), as well as choking out any native flora and fauna.

The Israeli Foreign Ministry tells us that water is considered a resource of utmost importance in a nation where they have suffered from a chronic water shortage for years. In recent years the situation has developed into a crisis so severe that it is feared that quite soon it may be difficult to adequately supply municipal and household water requirements. The current cumulative deficit in Israel’s renewable water resources amounts approximately to 2 billion cubic meters, an amount almost equal to the annual consumption of the country. In Israel in the earlier days when the water was used primarily for agriculture, eutrophication in the Sea of Galilee might have had little impact; but now with the large increase in today’s demand for potable water, that kind of pollution can no longer be allowed. Yet the swamps that had once filtered the water—as well as stabilized the region and provided a natural balance in the Huleh Valley—were gone; papyrus had all but vanished. To reverse the effects, essentially to re-establish wetland plants like papyrus and allow them to do what they have been doing for thousands of years, would be an expensive operation, but it would still be cheaper than the construction of additional conventional (i.e., chemical) sewage-treatment facilities.

The future was clear: the plant that started it all would have to be brought back, and apologies would have to be made. It is now clear that reversing the damage was a positive step for everyone, a win-win situation. The first thing was to create a new reserve area in which papyrus was left to grow and reproduce. That resulted in a new atmosphere where local farming, tourism, and nature protection authorities began working cooperatively. Another factor was that there was a diversion of peat water and local sewage into treatment plants and subsequent use for irrigation, all of which will reduce the flow of nitrates into the Sea of Galilee.

The new Reserve also provides a rationale for expanding commercial tourist resources within the region. This translates into a movement to provide even more habitat for seasonal birds and ensures that the Huleh Valley will be one of the most bird-rich places in the Middle East.

Luckily, the Huleh Swamp disaster was reversible. Other such papyrus-clearance schemes are often not so fortunate. The foremost example of papyrus clearance that caused permanent damage is the delta region in Egypt. Papyrus, the plant once adored and revered by ancient Egyptians, was cleared from the delta over a thousand years ago and replaced in part by other wetlands that have since also been decimated. In the modern era, the delta has been systematically degraded so that the northern and eastern areas are on their way to becoming a no-man’s-land, a place where fishermen are afraid to eat their catch and farmers are unable to use the local land or drink the water.

Egypt can’t afford this. The Nile Delta represents about 60% of the nation’s total arable land and is home to about 30 million people. Engineered wetlands designed to filter pollution are now being built in the delta on 245 acres of land set aside for that purpose. The idea is to help stop and reverse the march of land loss and salinization. Papyrus has been brought back to Egypt, where it might once again be used and cultivated in protected plots in order to help reverse the ravages of man. This battle for survival has just started as the country braces itself to reclaim much-needed agricultural land from an encroaching desert, feed its growing millions, save water that is being wasted in enormous quantities, and fight back the sea that is swallowing the delta—a battle that will worsen as global climate change takes hold.

In this struggle where every resource must be mobilized, papyrus may yet have a role to play in helping Egypt survive the 21st century. Today, papyrus is part of the world community of wetlands that works within the biosphere to help complete the global cycle of elements in nature. Wetlands are said to be the tough guys of the plant world because all along the world’s coastlines, they have to bear the brunt of hurricanes and oil spills. Inland wetlands that line rivers and lakes have to act as the front line in filtering pollution and moderating flood events. Their impenetrable green wall shelters birds, fish, and endangered mammals, and acts as nurseries for commercial species like shrimp and crabs. But wetlands only show up on the front pages when the heat is on.

They were in the news during the BP Deepwater Horizon platform accident, the worst environmental disaster the US has ever faced. Today, years after 5 million barrels of crude oil were spewed into the sea, the Gulf ecosystems are miraculously recovering. How did that happen? The story now emerges that bacteria in the open water, microbes that cluster at the bases of the wetland plants and those that inhabit the mud of the swamps and marshes, are doing their job. The wetlands that harbor these microbial wonders metabolize enormous quantities of oil even as they continue to provide nursery grounds for economically important coastal fish and shellfish and a fall and winter habitat for over 13 million birds. And they do all this without fanfare and after many pictures of the brown pelican of Louisiana had captured the Gulf oil spill headlines.

There is no component of the biosphere that works harder than wetlands to restore order and maintain equilibrium in the natural world, yet they are losing ground every minute of the day. In Louisiana it is obvious that the levees are holding back the silt that used to flow out over the wetlands, while at the same time oil extraction from the deep regions causes the land to sink. Both processes are causing the rooted wetlands to disappear under the water. This loss of Louisiana wetlands to what is called “subsidence” is no idle threat; 40% of the wetlands in the US occur there, and these are now lost at the rate of 35 square miles or more each year. This translates to over an acre an hour for the last half-century or more.

If wetlands are lost at such rates in the First World, what chance do they have elsewhere? Papyrus still grows in Africa in swamps up and down the Rift Valley, in war-torn Southern Sudan, across the African Great Lakes region, down into the Copperbelt of southern Africa, throughout the Congo Basin, and in the southernmost reaches of the Okavango River in Botswana. Since its natural habitat is the rivers and swamps that often form the boundaries between countries, papyrus is found in some of the most politically and economically unstable places in the African world. This makes it even more difficult to conserve. When bullets and artillery shells are whizzing overhead, preservationists and planners are not likely to pay attention to the message that papyrus, the plant that was used in ancient Egypt to make paper, is still a priceless and unique ecosystem.

Thus far, papyrus has been our constant companion in a historical narrative, and until now we have treated it as a curious relic of our ancient past, from the Egyptian marsh men and scribes, to military and civil war hideaways, as water saviors, and finally as vengeful, peaty wraiths. In the next section we will see it in a new light: as a rescuing force in the modern age where pollution and degradation of nature have become the new scourges of mankind.