In a plant nursery in northern Iraq’s autonomous Kurdistan region, hundreds of pine, eucalyptus, olive and pomegranate saplings grow under awnings protecting them from the fierce summer sun. The nursery in Sarchinar in the Kurdish city of Sulaimaniyah is part of efforts to battle the destructive effects of deforestation in the region. “Almost 50 percent of forests have been lost in Kurdistan in 70 years,” said Nyaz Ibrahim of the UN’s World Food Programme. She attributed the loss to “water scarcity, rising temperatures, irregular decreasing rainfall and also fire incidents”. The loss is catastrophic, as the Kurdistan region is home to 90 percent of forests in Iraq, which has been among the hardest hit globally by climate change and desertification. Much of this comes down to illegal tree felling and forest fires—intensified by summer droughts—as well as military operations on Iraq’s northern border.