[A]mid this environmental meltdown, Azzam Alwash - conservationist, civil engineer and one of the leading figures in Iraq's fledgeling ecological movement - remains optimistic. 

"People don't give nature enough credit for how resilient it is," says Alwash. "With the right policies, Iraq could manage its water supplies and become, as in ancient times, the breadbasket of the Middle East."

Alwash, 60, was born in Nasiriyah, in south-eastern Iraq. As a child, he recalls paddling a small boat through southern Iraq's marshes with his father, an irrigation engineer.

"It was a piece of heaven, full of fish and birds, water buffalo grazing on land amongst the reeds."

In the late 1970s, Alwash went to California, studied for an engineering doctorate and built up a successful career as a civil engineer.  He married, had two daughters and, for a while, lived the American dream.

"I learned my optimism in the US," says Alwash. "A 'can do' attitude was injected into me and has stayed despite all the setbacks and problems encountered over the years."

In the mid-1990s, Saddam Hussein launched his brutal campaign against the Shia of the south, bombing, draining and poisoning large areas of Alwash's beloved marshes.

Following Saddam's downfall in 2003, Alwash - after more than 20 years of living and working in California - returned to Iraq. He founded the Nature Iraq environmental group and put his hydraulic engineering skills to work, becoming one of the prime movers behind the re-flooding of the marshes region.