This is one of ten nurseries to be established in cooperation with civil and official institutions. Part of the nursery was damaged as a result of the Turkish government’s air raids on 22 December, 2023, and another part was destroyed.

At the beginning of 2024, environmental committees were established in schools, and training workshops were initiated to qualify and activate these committees in cooperation between the Education Authority in Al-Jazira Province, the Directorate of Education in Tirbesbiye, and the Green Tress Association. 60 teachers and school officials from the environmental committees were trained in the schools of Tirbesbiye and its villages.

The Women’s Environmental Platform was established at the beginning of 2023 and includes women from fifteen institutions and committees of institutions operating in Rojava and northeastern Syria.

This volunteering day with the Faculty of Agriculture was part of the agreement between the University of Rojava and the Green Tresses Environmental Association to work together in the field of environment.

The Environmental Committee in Umm al-Rabie Elementary School in Amuda started its programme, which included a lecture on the concept of an ‘environmental school’.

The lecture on the concept of eco-school included:

• The importance of preserving the environment and ecological balance as a collective responsibility of each individual.
• Risks resulting from climate change, environmental degradation and loss of vegetation.
• At the end of the lecture, many students and teachers participated in planting tree seeds and writing brochures calling for the preservation of the environment.

Since 23/10/2024, the regions of Northern and Eastern Syria have witnessed a new wave of escalation in which the Turkish occupying state has targeted the already fragile infrastructure and services due to the siege imposed on the region’s population and the long duration of the ongoing war in the country.

Turkey has carried out 1,031 attacks, leaving 17 martyrs and 65 injured. These attacks have left many civilian victims, including children and women, by directly targeting medical points, bakeries, grain silos, power stations, a cheese and milk factory, an animal feed factory and some oil installations.

These unjustified attacks on the region’s population and infrastructure, in addition to the continued water cuts, expose the region to an extremely dangerous environmental situation and confirm that the methodology of the Turkish government and its army is aimed at destruction and annihilation. The effects of this systematic policy can be seen in the deprivation of the people of the region of their natural resources, such as the deliberate and premeditated water cuts for more than a decade, which have turned the Mesopotamian region (Mesopotamia) into a semi-arid desert, lacking water and food, after having been a cradle of agricultural wealth.

Today’s repeated attacks on oil installations confirm that the region is experiencing sustained pollution and devastating long-term environmental impacts, with consequent threats to biodiversity and disruption of ecosystems. This pollution, resulting from the use of various types of lethal weapons, can extend to water and pose a threat to health and agriculture, in clear defiance of international environmental law, human rights and sovereignty.

We as Green Tress Environmental Association, condemn the Turkish state’s methodology of extermination against the components of the region and its nature, and call upon all environmental movements, environmental activists, democratic forces and human rights defenders to raise a loud voice to condemn these crimes against people and nature.

The Jaghjagh River is a tributary of the Khabur River in Turkey and Syria, running through the city of Qamishlo in northeastern Syria.

In recent years, the Turkish state has used water as a weapon against the people of northeastern Syria in addition to its ongoing attacks on the region. The water of the Jaghjagh River was heavily used for irrigation of more than 50,000 decares of agricultural land in the city of Qamishlo. However, the river now poses a threat to the public health and environment in the Jazira Canton because the Turkish state has poured sewage and chemical waste into the river. The people of Hasakah have been suffering from a water crisis, the Turkish state has cut off the water of the Khabur River, the source of living for the local people.

‘We got sick’

Selima Reşid Ehmed, whose house is close to the Jaghjagh River, complains about the foul smell coming from the river. “We all got sick due to the pollution of water. Snakes, scorpions and insects are coming out of the Jaghjagh River. We demand the municipality find a solution to this crisis,” she told NuJINHA.

‘The river had good water quality in the 90s’

NuJINHA spoke to Hêvin Şêxo, an environmentalist living in Germany and a member of an environmental organization named “Kêziyen Kesk a Jîngehi (English: Green Braids of Nature)”, about the river water pollution. “The river had good water quality in the 90s,” she said. “The Jaghjagh River formed a very beautiful natural environment and many people used to benefit from its water. The people used to use the water for irrigation. Unfortunately, the Turkish state has cut off the water of the Khabur River to use water as a weapon against the people of North and East Syria. It has begun to build dams to cut off the water of the Khabur River and Jaghjagh River.”

‘It poses a threat to the public health and environment’

 The Turkish state has poured sewage and chemical waste into the Jaghjagh River,” Hêvîn Şêxo emphasized, adding, “The current policy of the Turkish state has a massive impact on the public health and environment. It has a negative impact on soil, water and air. The sewage and chemical waste poured into the river pollute water and water pollution causes the spread of diseases.”

‘The Turkish state spills sewage into the river’

Bêrivan Silo, Co-chair of the Department of Water Resources in Jazira Canton, told us that they developed many projects about the Jaghjagh River; however, they could not put these projects into practice due to financial difficulties. “The Turkish state deliberately spills sewage and chemical waste into the river in Turkey. Since the river flows through the city of Qamishlo, water pollution causes diseases. Women and children are the most affected by water pollution. Although the Qamishlo Municipality develops projects to solve this problem, they cannot put these projects into practice due to financial problems. The Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria does its best to solve this problem despite all the attacks. The humanitarian aid organizations should support the projects developed to solve this problem.”

‘The humanitarian aid organizations should put pressure on the Turkish state’

Bêrivan Silo called on the humanitarian aid organizations to take “immediate action so that the people of the region can benefit from the river again and use water for irrigation. The international humanitarian organization should put pressure on the Turkish state to stop spilling sewage and chemical waste into the river.”

Let’s reflect on the great achievements of the Rojava revolution in north and east Syria in the face of great adversity: the unification of communities deliberately divided on the basis of religion and ethnicity by dictatorial states and the Islamic fundamentalist terrorist movements alike; the liberation and empowerment of women in the face of the reactionary rollbacks imposed by the later; the embryonic attempts to reorganise the economy on a cooperative and ecologically sustainable basis; and the establishment of inclusive grassroots democracy based on the democratic confederalist ideas developed by long-imprisoned Kurdish leader Abdullah Öcalan.

As the Kurdish revolutionaries readily admit, their struggle to refashion society is not an easy process but one that involves both experimentation and perseverance. There are steps forward and steps back but only to try and move forward once again.

“The revolution is made through human beings, but individuals must forge their revolutionary spirit day by day,” as Che also said.

Revolutions by their nature involve both radical transformations of social and economic structures, but also, inevitably, the transformation of individual consciousness, behaviour and habits.

“The people are the way they are because they are in the midst of a revolution,” Che once explained to international volunteer work brigades many decades ago.

Through their actions, people are forging different social relations and a different understanding of themselves and the world — thus becoming different individuals, creating a different “human nature” in the course of revolutionary struggle.

And so it is today in the Rojava revolution and therefore anyone around the world who understands that we need to radically change the way we live, and the grossly inequitable and exploitative way society is now predominantly organised if humanity is to survive with peace and dignity into even the next generation, has a real interest in learning from the revolutionary school that is that precious revolution.

But even to do that requires a struggle to break the barriers to the information flow about the Rojava revolution to the rest of the world.

North and east Syria is largely isolated from the rest of the world by economic embargoes and the closure of borders by hostile neighbouring states. Therefore, one of the first challenges for international solidarity is to break through these barriers.

If we break though this isolation there is so much we can learn from the revolution.

The people of the world can learn from the experiences of the 60 or so autonomous women’s cooperatives are now operating in NES. About half of the agricultural land is now farmed by women’s cooperatives, according to this report by Bêrîtan Sarya.

Half these cooperatives are agricultural. The women in these cooperatives are cultivating the land, building irrigation systems, etc. The other women’s cooperatives produce canned goods, run bakeries, raise livestock or work in the service sector.

Dicle Amed, a member of the coordination of the Women’s Economy Committee of Kongra Star, explained in that article:

“As a women’s movement, we are struggling to democratise the system in general, the relations between men and women in the system and in society. It is about bringing the relations between the sexes back to the basis of freedom and equality. However, and more importantly, we have the ideological approach of building an independent women’s system. Just as Kongra Star as a system organises itself autonomously and independently, all sectors should also be structured autonomously. This is what is really relevant to us as a women’s Economy Committee. Our ideological and organisational orientation aims at securing ourselves without relying too much on the general system, thus organising ourselves and guaranteeing our freedom in this way. We are trying to bring out women’s skills, to employ women, and to make them once again a productive force independent of the outside.”

This effort is radically transformative as it takes place against the backdrop of the Assad regime’s exclusion of women from the economic sector.

It took years to make an impact among women, Dicle explained:

“A job that should be done in one year can sometimes take three or four years. Both teaching and learning are organised by women, and the structure of this process is completely autonomous. One has to start from a structure in Rojava in which women were completely enclosed in their homes and used as labourers for domestic work. In this sense, the integration of women into economic life is a revolution. It is a real but invisible revolution. Before the revolution, women were not involved in economic life; at most, only a certain number of women worked in agriculture at low wages. With the revolution, tens of thousands of women began to work in economic life both in the public sector, in the service sector, in agriculture, and in the industrial sector.”

This is just one example of the rich experiences the world can learn from the Rojava revolution. We could also learn from the pioneering efforts of the “Green Braids” movement, Kesiyên Kesk, which is trying to re-green north and east Syria.

“Regional policies have damaged our environment and our ecological system,” explained Ziwar Shewo, a spokesperson and co-founder of this movement of young volunteers that was formed in October 2020. “At least five rivers in Rojava now run dry. The regime never bothered about ecology. It wanted to turn the region into a supply of wheat with no consideration for the inhabitants.”

“Twenty five years ago, there were rivers, a greater variety of plants. Now the Autonomous Administration is in charge, we have the opportunity of repairing our environment,” he explained in this must-read article in Cooperation In Mesopotamia.

“We must accept the fact it is in poor condition and that we must change this state of affairs. There are only 1.5% of green spaces in Rojava, while international recommendations are for 10% to 12%.

“The lack of a green cover means we suffer from the heat, the pollution and illnesses, that and much more. In Syria, 80% of the cancer patients come from the north and northeast. After we heard that, we decided we had to do something as members of the civilian society.

Since the Autonomous Administration and local authorities couldn’t handle it because of lack of funds, we decided to take on the project. We want all of our society to join in, by spreading the culture of tree plantings, something people don’t care about at the moment.”

This movement has mobilised young women and men to collect donated seeds and do tree planting and the results are already noticeable.

It has now spread beyond Qamishlo, where it was founded, to Heseke and Darbasiyeh. Other similar projects also exist in north and east Syria, notably the one at the Internationalist Commune, Make Rojava Green Again.

Another area we can learn from is the development of grassroots democracy at the local level. This is an area I am particularly interested in because far away here in Australia I am part of a movement that is fighting for community empowerment at the municipal level in the face of relentless efforts by the capitalist state to destroy local democracy and replace it with giant, corporatised local government institutions that serve the greedy interests of big corporations.

In a 29 March, 2022 article in ANF News, Bêrîvan Omer, the deputy co-chair of the ecological and municipal Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (AANES), described some of the progress and challenges of overcoming centralised state structures by building a system of ecological and communal autonomous local administration.

“Local self-government is a grassroots democratic model for representing all identities according to their needs,” she explained, however the transformation from a life characterised by dictatorship to an organisation characterised by participation and self-determination was a rocky process.

The ecological local self-government has 11,000 members and deals with the services in 142 local governments in AANES.

The scheme of the system was clear, but there were question marks about how it should be implemented, she explained.

“We struggled because people expected answers from us about how they should participate in this administration, how they would be represented and how they could communicate with us. It is slowly trying to achieve this system and establish it as a culture.”

The system of local administration has developed since 2012, but she admitted they still have a long way to go.

“We are still struggling to even meet our daily needs. It was not as easy to implement our system as we wished. One of the simplest examples is this: a tree is planted, a few days later it is uprooted or damaged. We have not yet created sufficient awareness and sufficient education among the population. Of course, compared to the past, the mechanisms of population education and protection have improved, but this is not enough.”

Such frankness is to be applauded, after all one of the biggest challenges in any revolution is the rebuilding of new systems of popular, grassroots democracy. History has taught us that if revolutions fail to do this they can be rolled back and defeated.

These are just some of the exciting developments and experiments in the Rojava revolution that the world can learn from. But it should be enough to convince those who not only tremble with indignation at oppression but also dream of the new world we need to build together, to commit to building solidarity with this revolution.

Peter Boyle is a well known journalist and political activist living in Sydney, Australia. He is also a correspondent of the Green Left Journal.

“Within the principles of the AANES is the principle of social ecology. This concept isn’t just about how we can protect ecology, but it relates to a way of managing a community. The protection of the environment is a part of this”, says Omer, who has worked in her position since 2016. She tells RIC about her family history, saying that living an ecological life used to be something natural, not something that had to be struggled for. “In the past, people protected their environment. Still now in the villages people do so. They are more united with nature, raising animals, not using so much energy that destroys the environment like in cities. We want to teach the communes how to separate the garbage now, but my mother was separating the garbage in previous times, and no one had to tell her how to do it. She was feeding animals, so the family had yogurt and eggs, which they made themselves, so there was no need to bring them from somewhere else. You didn’t need a car to bring your needs, you didn’t need to gather loads of animals together in a big place to get milk and yogurt, you could take care of yourself by yourself. Also important is that no company or single person would control yogurt, for example, or manipulate prices. All people could provide for themselves; there was self-sufficiency. We need to look what ecological knowledge is already existing in our society. For example, older people who lived in villages before. We can benefit from their experiences, in terms of how they dealt with trash, how they recycled. My mother doesn’t really produce trash. She uses things many times, until it actually is trash. This is a form of culture.”

Water issues are continually brought up in the conversations. While NES is naturally arid, with long hot summers and little annual precipitation, the effects of global climate change are predicted to be particularly severe in Syria. Meanwhile, the flow of the once mighty Euphrates River has drastically reduced, as upstream damming in Turkey has allowed for the latter to limit flow into Syria. The Khabur River and its streams too have partially or fully dried up. Meanwhile, water from NES’ Alouk water station, which sits in the Turkish-occupied ‘M4 Strip’ is vulnerable to political games, as the Syrian National Army (SNA) which control the area frequently cut the flow off.

“In general, the problem of water is big, especially in Heseke”, says Omer. “The situation there in terms of cleanliness and planting trees is difficult. People can’t even get enough drinking water. If you discuss ecological problems there, people say “I don’t even have water to drink”. Before the Turkish occupation of Sere Kaniye, Heseke had water, but not after. Turkey uses the water to make demands. It is not just the people of Heseke who suffer from this. The people of Sere Kaniye too, many of whom were displaced and fled to Heseke. They rely on tanked water. Bringing tanked water requires oil. We have some projects to solve this crisis but until they are implemented, we need water tanks.”

She states that until those projects are fully approved and announced, little formal information such as cost and operational output can be given but explained that the key project should see water brought to Heseke from a village near Amude via new pipes. One year ago, work began to research groundwater stores in Heseke, by geologists and other scientists. They found that the drinkable water closest to Heseke is in Sere Kaniye (now under Turkish occupation), Tel Brak, or Amude area. Amude, sitting at around 60km from Heseke, is not the ideal location, but there was nothing closer, Omer says. When you get closer to the city, the water is not clean enough. The cost of cleaning that water cancels out the benefits it could bring. The plan is to dig wells in the Amude village, where the water is “really good and plentiful”, and then install pipes to bring this water to Heseke city. One test well has been dug so far. If the project is completed, “it still won’t be able to provide water daily; I don’t say this will solve the problem in Heseke completely, but it will be part of the solution. It will help”, says Omer. She also mentions one other project that was initiated to solve Heseke’s acute water shortage: a plan based on the skeleton of a barely-started Syrian government project to channel water to Heseke from the Euphrates River. “We continued this project last year. The problem we see is that the people who live in villages near the river pipe tap the water illegally, so the amount that reaches the city is minimal. The project was only ever estimated to provide 20% of the city’s water needs, but people siphoning off water before it even reaches the city means its provision is really low and the water flow is slow. The amount reaching the city is not enough. And the villages near the pipe also suffer from a lack of water, so they don’t have much choice but to take it. So, the Euphrates project is there, but doesn’t provide the needed amount.”

Shexo still remembers what NES’ rivers were like in his childhood, he says, referencing how Turkey’s dam building has spelled disaster for them. “When I was a kid, I couldn’t even go to my local river so easily, because in the winter there would be floods. Even in the summer, the water would never dry out. My family had a garden and grew many kinds of vegetables to sell. There were fish in the river; we ate them. The region was generally vibrant. You could find everything you wanted: birds, fish, types of herbs whose names we don’t even know now. These rivers are gone now: no water, no fish, no gardens, no trees. The village I grew up in is empty. Turkey’s GAP project caused a big ecological change here, which in turn caused waves of displacement.” Shexo is angry that the Syrian government has not taken more action against Turkey’s dam building, but says he is resigned to the reality that “both governments – Syria and Turkey – agree on annihilating the Kurds and damaging these regions because the Kurds live here.” He continues, “Syria does not have a problem with such practices; whatever Turkey does, Syria does not interfere.”

In both interviews, Omer and Shexo stress the issue of societal mentality as important. Omer explained: “Mentality is the problem we face. We need to change, and it is difficult. I mean, to convince people to take care of what is around them, planting trees, not making places dirty, not throwing garbage. It takes time to teach this mentality. Regarding changing mentalities, this could best happen in schools, teaching the kids and the new generation.” Indeed, that is a big part of the work of Keziyen Kesk, which was set up in November 2020, Shexo tells RIC. “We want students to act in environmentally minded ways, not just theoretically but in practice, to cultivate an environmentally minded population. We give theoretical and practice classes. For example, we teach a teacher how to make a tree sapling. Then the students can learn how to do it. Alongside this, the students get lessons about trees and the environment. Then they will be able to better understand, as they see how their tiny sapling becomes a massive tree. Another important activity is gathering garbage and sorting it according to plastic and glass. This is also done with students, as part of daily environmental works, so it becomes part of the students’ mentality. If this happens, the students can themselves spread this mentality amongst their friends and family, take responsibility, make the needed changes, so it won’t only be a matter of one or two people, it could be a whole community working according to environmental standards. In short, this is what our schools project is based on, and this is just the beginning. It took one year for us to talk with the AANES Education body and for our proposal to be accepted. We have the aim of making schools the core of an environmental mentality and bring up a generation who takes care of the environment.” Omer too is in and out of schools, giving lectures, planting trees, and cleaning the school grounds with the students.

Within cities, ecological problems are particularly acute. Bave Barzan laments the rubbish on the streets in Qamishlo, saying, “In terms of garbage on the streets, before the revolution there was some garbage, but not at this level. There was not this much dirt, although there was tyranny from the State. I think this is connected to 12 years of war. We don’t want to have garbage in the city. We pay monthly for the municipality garbage service. We want our streets to be clean, free from polluting cars. We want clean nature and forests.” Omer rejects the notion that the municipality needed to do more to keep streets clean: “Responsibility for cleaning lies both in the hands of the AANES and the people. But to be honest, I don’t understand why the AANES should clean our streets or houses. No one can deny that the AANES works hard on these things; if they stopped working for one day, you can’t imagine what would happen. But the municipality doesn’t need to come and collect every person’s garbage and clean their surroundings. There is a garbage container in every neighbourhood. People should remove their own things and put their garbage there. Sometimes the municipality’s truck goes 3 times to one neighbourhood to gather up their garbage. The municipality doesn’t have so many workers, maybe 100 to 200. Meanwhile the people are big in number. We shouldn’t think in this way that the municipality workers should do everything. We shouldn’t learn that another person should come to clean on our behalf. I do see that the garbage containers are not enough, and there is no sorting. But it is a problem if we think the cleanliness of the street is just an issue for the municipality to solve.” Omer notes that the AANES does have environmental laws and regulations about trash disposal, but that implementation is minimal: “In the time of the [Syrian] regime, there was fear. The police were strict and people were afraid of breaking the law. Maybe this plays a role in people’s behaviour. The AANES is new and not strict towards this. There are municipality laws for cleanliness, including taking the garbage out, but implementation is so difficult. You can get fined, but it takes months in court and probably in the end you don’t pay anything. But the solution is not to be stricter. The solution is to speak with kids, teaching them why they shouldn’t spoil their surroundings. Cities are too big anyway to observe and catch every garbage thrower. But we will establish committees in the communes to help the municipality and spread and implement the laws around cleanliness.”

There are new waste management projects, Omer says. She brings up the issue of trash dumping in the long stretch of land between Heseke and Raqqa cities and tells of an upcoming project to remove all this trash, saying the planning is in the final stages. “The trash will be collected and taken to another place where it can be sorted. We are also having discussions with cooperatives about how they can be involved in this work. A transportation station will be built, so big trucks can take the garbage there.” There is also a project to implement specialized waste management strategies for hospital waste, although this is still in the early stages.

Keziyen Kesk take tree planting as a core priority. Upon founding, one of the team’s first activities was to research tree coverage in NES, looking at UN figures and trying to account for the decimation of trees since the Syrian Civil War. Shexo says that currently the team tries to find empty areas and make agreements with landowners to start planting saplings and establishing small arboretums. 10 such arboretums have been created so far. He explains that ISIS used forested places for training and many trees were cut or used for target practice or dried up through lack of water. In addition, many were sold to burn for heating.

Two new small forests have been established in Tirbespi and Qamishlo areas, says Omer. “This is something that gives us hope. Before we were planting 100, 200, 300 trees and seeing that as a big thing, but now we are talking 30,000, 40,000.” She also says that the opening of arboretums has been a big step, because previously the AANES had to bring trees from other places, such as Homs and Hama, where the soil and environment is different, therefore the trees struggle to survive in NES’ environmental conditions.

The scarcity of trees in NES has its historical reasons, says Shexo. “Before, the Syrian government did not allow for trees to be planted here in this region to make forests. Also, you couldn’t use your farmland to grow olives, for example. You had to just grow cotton and wheat. The government forced people to grow only that with the government needed to get richer. In the 90s, some people gathered to plant trees, I know them. The Syrian government intelligence took them and tortured them. If you showed this to the government, they would deny it. They would show documents that stipulate that for every well drilled, 30-50 trees should be planted.” Yet, Shexo says, there are around 2,000 wells here, but very few trees. He explains that government workers would be paid in exchange for letting the owners of wells not plant any trees. “They [the government] say that the people of this region have no environmental culture of planting trees. They won’t say that it was their own plans and policies that resulted in this situation.” Even now, the Damascus government presents obstacles to tree growing: “We tried to bring certain seeds here, but the government did not allow it. We tried to bring them in secret ways, but they lasered the seeds, killing their organic components, so when we planted them, they did not grow. This is one way in which this region is under siege. We are really forced to find regional solutions and not rely on the outside.”

The AANES are in the process of creating a laboratory to analyse air and soil pollution, Omer tells, which will help inform decisions about tree planting, because “we currently don’t have much specific information about how much and what kind of pollution there is”.

Nine months ago, Keziyen Kesk started a project with Jazira region’s village municipalities, also based on tree planting. Each municipality connects around 60 villages. “We visited each municipality in the beginning, to talk with them about the importance of working on environmental issues. They would say: “We have so many problems already”. It took us some time to convince the co-chairs of the municipalities”, explains Shexo. “We will be visiting them again, one by one, each municipality, staying with them a whole day to help them and do things with them. Our goal is that the municipalities themselves can give trees and saplings for free to the people of the villages.”

Shexo notes that people are reluctant to put in the work to slowly nurture a sapling to a tree. He links this to a desire for things that come easily and are prepared for you. Omer also brings up this issue, arguing that this is a relatively new mindset in this region. “A few years before the revolution, there was not this consumption of things that is seen today”, she says. “Today, things don’t last long. For example, the use of plastic is really dangerous. And things like ready-made food; everything pre-made, ready for you, coming from outside. Most imports come from Turkey, or also from Iran and the Kurdistan Region of Iraq. Things aren’t made here. It is like an attack: the imposition of quick life, urgent life, the influence of capitalism, the influence of outside lifestyles… these have really entered our life here. Everything is fast, urgent, consumption is high. People don’t know how to make food from scratch anymore or take care of animals or trees.” Omer says that her department conducted research on the contents of garbage bins. 60% of the trash was organic waste. “This means that people aren’t using all their food”. Meanwhile, “some people eat from the rubbish. This has happened during this time. Before, it wasn’t like this, people noticed each other, there wasn’t this difference between some people throwing away food and others eating it from the trash. There has been a change in this period. The influence of war, the influence of there not being enough to go around arrived.” She also references the issue of plastic trash, saying “now, every day, we are using so much plastic. In all places. The plastic becomes trash and becomes a problem, so we need to address this, solve it. But we also have to look at life a little; the form of human life has changed. Before, people were not like this. There are still many good examples. If you go a bit away from Qamishlo, go to a village, you will see a good life being lived, a life that doesn’t pollute so much, where people are one with their environment. They don’t have so many problems like there are inside the city where it is becoming hard to breathe. We have to work on building a better culture of consumption. This means education, changing mentalities, making people familiar. But time is required for people to adjust and to solve things.”

Omer brings up efforts made towards recycling of trash. Several small recycling centers established by individuals for themselves exist in the Jazira region, Omer recalls adding that there is also one recycling center in Manbij. One owned by the AANES is in Heseke. Two communes gather and sort their garbage, and send certain cardboard to the AANES recycling center, and send plastic to another factory. She reveals that the Barcelona local government has helped with education and training in terms of garbage sorting.

Omer is clear that oil is a problem in NES, but because things like cars and generators depend on oil, the opportunities for moving away from oil are scarce. Shexo elaborates on the history of oil production in Syria, explaining that while most of Syria’s oil extraction always took place in the oil-rich northeast, facilities for refining oil were only built near Damascus. “Any strategic facilities that were important to the Syrian government were never built in the Kurdish-majority regions”. When oil fields in the region fell into the hands of the Free Syrian Army (FSA) and later ISIS, crude and makeshift methods for refining oil greatly proliferated, causing damage to the surrounding environment. Shexo says that under the AANES, this practice wasn’t shut down but continued. He tells RIC that a new refining station is being built, because currently there is only one refining station in NES, which was established to lessen the need to take oil to government-regions to be refined, but whose production is not enough for the whole of NES. “This new station will positively change the situation in terms of meeting energy needs here: there is a huge need for energy as the population is increasing, the cities are getting bigger, and displaced people from all other regions of Syria have come here to settle down. But in terms of the environment, it is harmful. The problem of eco-unfriendly refineries continues and greatly affects the environment. The Global Coalition and European countries should help us on this issue. For us as Keziyen Kesk, we say that we should put an end to oil use and base our strategy on clean energy and be the first administration to announce the stopping of the use of oil; we should be the first who calls for such an initiative, but currently the AANES is not in a good position to do this. Yes, it is true, there is war. A fight against ISIS and Turkish attacks and an embargo, but if we had a chance, we should go ahead with clean energy and use that instead of oil.”

Solar power is present across all of Syria, Shexo notes, especially in Damascus where there are some big stations, but in NES there are only smaller personal projects for individual houses. “Solar energy comes in levels. I personally work in this field. The requests we get [here in NES] are for individual houses rather than for providing electricity to villages for example. There are some discussions but nothing more regarding huge stations.” Yet there are many difficulties associated with this, such as the need for advanced technical equipment on a large scale, which is not available in Syria, and needs to be imported at a high cost and with great difficulty, he states. “We want to make them, we really want to start with these stations, because it is the reality of the future that we will have to use them, not just here but in all countries. We need to start with clean energy. The conditions here in Syria are good because the sun gives so much power. There are studies on such projects but currently nothing is in progress. People install personal solar panels but there are no projects on the level of villages of cities.”

Omer stresses the need for communes to play an active role in environmental initiatives: “What is important for the future is ecological projects in the communes. Currently there are two communes in Heseke involved in trash sorting. Democracy and ecology are intertwined actually. If a commune is able to make decisions and people are collaborating, these are important steps for achieving self-sufficiency. If people are working together you need less cars to transport things from far away. Since communes are our key actor here, we should give support to them. We are the regional municipality, but communes are also part of regional management. We complete each other and collaborate with each other. Our roles are according to our capabilities.” Importance is given to global environmental days, such as Earth Day, she says. Special activities or events with the communes are organized to mark these occasions.

The optimism Omer holds is clear throughout the conversation. “We have made steps”, she asserts. “To be honest, most people did not have a good idea about what ecology was prior to the revolution. This concept has developed so much with the revolution. This topic is becoming more interesting for people. I mean, it was not like this 4 or 5 years ago. Now, when you bring up this topic, people listen to you. Many people have started environmental initiatives or tree planting. I have been working on this, making initiatives and campaigns and I see that participation is high. In this way, ideas and beliefs start to spread in the community. In the beginning our projects were small, but they have been growing with time. We were very focussed on planting and protecting trees, but in the last year there have been bigger projects to solve problems in cities.”

Shexo also emphasizes that recent years have seen the proliferation of associations and initiatives related to the environment in NES. “Civil society more broadly has started to develop and work on ecological projects. Step by step, we have managed to make a group of some civil community associations that work for the environment. We want to put all the associations and organizations interested in the environment under one umbrella, so that our plans and strategy can be unified, especially since environmental protections are weak and not organized. If we gather together, we will be stronger.” Keziyen Kesk would like to have more collaboration with the AANES, Shexo says, and adds that more active environmental regulation is needed. “In our strategy, we involve all the people: students, the old, the young, schools, communes. The AANES should support and help us.” Outside of the AANES, Shexo says that Keziyen Kesk is searching for connections and communication with other environmental associations and organizations in Europe and America. “Many environmental organizations have been working for decades, but we are only starting, so we need education and training on many aspects. We need to participate in meetings about environmental protection at the world level. We would really benefit from this. In general, here, we are still in a war situation. Within this, we hope to be the voice of the environment.”

The situation of war, past and present, is continually brought up in all three interviews. “In NES, the war impacted everything so much”, says Bave Barzan. “When people ran out of fuel, they would go to cut trees. When electricity blackouts began to be so frequent, people needed generators. One of the reasons for the blackouts was the reduction of water flow in the dams.” Bave Barzan laments the need for generators. “I will now go to turn on the generator to have electricity”, he says, striding off to just outside his house where the neighbourhood generator is located, “but if the main electricity supply would come it would be better for the environment and civilians”. He also references Turkey’s cutting off the water flow entering NES, saying that the resultant poor functioning of NES’ dams limits the general electricity supply. “At the start of the Syrian Civil War, the electricity lines and stations were all damaged. It was 3 hours with electricity, 3 hours without. That winter was really difficult; people went to cut trees to burn on wood stoves. Then a wealthy family bought the generator for this neighbourhood. We are just responsible for running it and collecting the monthly money. In the city the generators produce smoke and pollute the streets. There is a long way to go to improve this. The city is full of noise and black smoke because of the generators. This affects the health of the people, but we are forced to use it because there is little electricity. The solution here is an improvement to the public electricity supply.”

“Ecology is a fundamental principle of the AANES”, says Omer, “but the AANES is always in a state of emergency. There is war.” She then brings up the topic of tree cutting at the hands of the SNA in Turkish-occupied Afrin. “In my opinion, Afrin is the most beautiful and green city. But you see what is happening there; almost half a million trees have been cut since it was invaded by Turkey in 2018. This is also a matter of mentality. The people who cut trees don’t know what the trees mean. They just came, saw them, and cut them without any hesitation. Turkey destroys the ecology there. How can you destroy a place or a region and kill people just for your interests, under pretexts like protecting your territories? The situation is so difficult there.”

“War also meant that educated people, engineers, people with environmental knowledge migrated away”, says Shexo.

For all AANES employees, Omer says that Turkish drone strikes hamper their work. “The ongoing Turkish attacks on our region are an obstacle”, she declares. “Recently the co-chair of the regional administration lost her life in an attack. I was shocked when I heard. What is the reason for Turkey killing her? Trying to build a community in which people can co-exist together? Employees of the AANES work hard, do their job, and then they get targeted and killed by Turkey. Imagine you are building something great for people and this is your reason for being killed. Every time these attacks happen, it limits our work for some time, as we fear going out too much. This means we don’t go out to see our projects, or attend meetings, because we don’t want to risk lives. It really affects us; it puts obstacles in front of our work. It is hard to work well in such circumstances.”

The ecological structure is also destroyed in the attacks on Northern and Eastern Syria. The Ecology Committee of Kongra Star has protected nature with the spirit of goddesses. Rihan Temo, spokesperson of the committee, called on women, people, organizations and institutes and said, “Protect your lands, nature because our lands are rich. We want to create the mentality protecting ecology culture in society. We should protect our environment and trees.

The establishment of the Ecology Committee of the Kongra Star was announced at the eighth congress of the Kongra Star held in 2020. Rihan Temo, spokesperson of the committee, spoke to NuJINHA about the importance of ecology for society and nature and the work of the committee. Noting that the region they live in is known for its beauty and has fertile lands, Rihan Temo underlined that there was a massacre of nature when the trees were cut down during the rule of the Baathist regime.

“Great prices were paid”

Stating that many natural places were destroyed in the Cizîre Region, Rihan Temo said, “Many chemical materials that polluted the air were used in the region. People were alienated from nature. Women corrected all wrong approaches to nature. We protect all living creatures with the spirit of goddesses, we protect nature. For this reason, the Ecology Committee was needed. Ecology doesn’t mean only trees and green areas. What is important is to build an ecological culture. Great prices were paid in the lands of Northern and Eastern Syria and the children of these people sacrificed their lives to protect and defend the nature of this region.”

“Ecology is a balance”

Emphasizing that ecology is a balance between society and nature, Rihan Temo continued to talk as follows: “We should eliminate alienation and see ourselves as a part of nature. We can define the occupation and plunder against people as the occupation and plunder aiming to change the demographic structure of the region. If we protect the environment, we can protect trees, soil, oxygen and all nature. If we build an ecological culture in society, we can protect the environment by eliminating environmental degradation.”

Awareness-raising activities

Speaking about the responsibilities of the committee, Rihan Temo said, “We hold seminars, ecological training and meetings to raise awareness of the ecology in society. We should create an ecological mentality in society because people think they have the right to pollute and destroy nature. This mindset is the mindset of the sovereigns. We aim to change this mindset. We hold seminars and ecological training in villages because the villagers live with nature and they are connected to nature.”

“Ecology is the most important pillar of the Democratic Nation”

Stating that one of the most important pillars of the Democratic Nation is ecology, Rihan Temo said, “Leader Apo thinks ecology is very important. Ecology is one of the important pillars of the democratic nation that includes everyone. After the Ecology Committee was formed, we have held many meetings to discuss ecological problems and the solutions against these problems. In our region, heavy weapons and prohibited weapons were/are used. We have waged a great struggle against the power mentality that makes society sick. Many attacks were carried out in our region, particularly in Afrin, Kobanî, Serêkaniyê and Girê Spî and their nature was destroyed. The people of the region are constantly threatened with water cuts. The use of vehicles and oil consumption also pollute nature. We need clean air for agriculture. We need an ecological revolution.”

Projects to protect nature

Speaking about the projects of the committee, Rihan Temo said, “One of our most fundamental projects is to establish the Ecology Council. Our aim is to build an ecological society by establishing the Ecology Council. We also aim to protect soil, water, trees and streams. Our committee has developed many projects to protect nature. We will launch a tree planting campaign in the spring.”

“There are volunteers advocating ecology”

Stating that there are volunteers and environmentalists who protect nature, Rihan Temo said, “There are volunteers struggling against ecological destruction. Many people, groups and organizations are trying to protect nature in villages. Keziyên Kesk (Green Organization) is one of them. It aims to plant five million trees in four years. Keziyên Kesk has joined our council and we are in touch with each other. A group called, “We Can Do It Together” has launched a campaign to protect creeks, trees and nature. This group has also launched a campaign to keep picnic areas, mosques, churches and living spaces clean in the cities. We call on all people to build an ecological culture in their society. Women protect society and nature the most. So we call on women to protect their lands, nature because our lands are rich. We want to create the mentality protecting ecology culture in society. We call on all organizations to protect nature. We have a rich and valuable society and lands. They deserve a healthy and ecological life.”

The air is fresher here than in town, less charged with dust and fumes from the poor-quality domestic oil fed into generators and motorized engines, stinking up the atmosphere and catching inthe throat. The volunteers at Keziyên kesk – the Green Braids – a group of young men and women, are busy pulling out the weeds around dozens of young tree seedlings, lined up in tight rows, before watering them carefully so as not to drown them.

The Kesiyên Kesk project started in October 2020. “Regional policies have damaged our environment and our ecological system. At least five rivers in Rojava now run dry. The regime never bothered about ecology. It wanted to turn the region into a wheat supply with no consideration for the inhabitants,” Ziwar Shewo explains as one of the spokespersons and co-founder of the project, and journalist on Ronahi. “Twenty five years ago, there were rivers, a greater variety of plants. Now the Autonomous Administration is in charge, we have the opportunity of repairing our environment. We must accept the fact it is in poor condition and that we must change this state of affairs. There are only 1.5% of green spaces in Rojava, while international recommendations are for 10 to 12% of the space to be thus occupied. The lack of a green cover means we suffer from the heat, the pollution and illnesses, that much more. In Syria, 80% of the cancer patients come from the North/Northeast. After we heard that ,we decided we had to do something as members of the civilian society. Since the Autonomous Administration and local authorities couldn’t handle it because of lack of funds, we decided to take on the project. We want all of our society to join in, by spreading the culture of tree plantings, something people don’t care about at the moment.”

The volunteers aim at planting 4 million trees in the region. This would have cost 30 billion Syrian lira for seeds, – approximately one million dollars at the current exchange rate – an absolutely outlandish amount. For this reason, they called upon donations. The seeds were sent from all the towns in the zones under the control of the North and East Administration in Syria. “This has placed a great responsibility on us,” explains Sidar, a medical student. “We treat these plants like we would our own children.” Rojava University lent the land that now bears 80,000 seedlings – 95% of the seeds have sprouted: vines, fig trees, mulberries, pomegranates, now awaiting further growth before being planted somewhere in the Cizrê region. An abandoned empty lot has also been offered by the town, the volunteers have cleaned it up and are ready to start planting trees there. A scientific committee that includes agronomists shoulders the volunteers in order to examine the region for the best locations to plant these trees. For instance, along roadways, around villages with fruits trees, in schoolyards…

Initially founded by three friends and supported by a solid group of fifteen or so people from different fields, although intellectuals, students, journalists, civil servants and writers predominate, the project is open to all volunteers. Invitations were sent via social networks and met with great success, with dozens of people showing up for specific actions. Schools came to lend a hand, as well as the Federation of the war wounded. The project is independent of the Autonomous Administration and rooted in civilian society, willing to accept aid from any volunteer or structure.

The name Keziyên Kesk was chosen as a tribute to the struggle of women in Rojava, particularly Yezidi women whose husbands were killed by ISIS and who cut off their braids to tie them to their tombs, as a symbol of resistance.

Nazdar is 25 years old, she is a civil engineer and has been working several years for an NGO. “Jin comes from jiyan which comes from nature. Nature gives life, just as women do. If a woman likes to plant growing things, she will transmit this passion to her children, more than a man will. By changing the situation for women, you also change it for the future generation”, she says. “Our project is on a 5 year plan. We are only beginning. I heard about it through social networks and this is how I came here. I was looking to involve myself in this kind o f project, so I didn’t hesitate. At first, I worried it would only be about planting trees without caring any further about them. But things are planned for the long term here. The topic is of interest to the young ones, they even wrote a song for us. It is also a place where you can spend some time with like-minded people. We have very few such places. It allows for an exchange of ideas. Had the project been tied to a political organization, I would not have joined up. This is a project of the civilian society.”

Keziyên kesk has started to spead beyond Qamishlo, to Heseke and Darbasiyeh where committees are being organized. Other similar projects also exist in the region, notably the one at the Internationalist Commune, Make Rojava Green Again.

Another co-founder of the project, Mehmûd Çaqmaqî, is a writer orginally from Efrîn, a region invaded by the Turkish State and its back-up troops at the end of 2018. They forced a massive exodus of inhabitants, committed assassinations, rapes and robberies against those who remained as attested by the testimony of survivors. The occupying forces notably targeted the olive trees for which the region is famous. Shovel in hand, Mehmûd explains: “In Efrîn, they cut down the trees, close to 1,400 of them and kill the earth. Here, we are planting. We have no borders, we are ready to plant trees everywhere, including in Sere Kaniye and in Efrîn. We hope our activity will inspire people and encourage them to stay here instead of emigrating.”

To follow the activities of Keziyên kesk:
Facebook | Twitter @tress_green

The initiative was launched last fall by a group of volunteers in the city of Qamishli to confront desertification and improve environmental conditions within a maximum period of five years.

Volunteers in Qamishli began on Tuesday to transplant the seedlings in the Green Braids Nursery in Rojava University garden in the Hilaliyah neighborhood.

“The project falls within the framework of sustainable development projects to increase green spaces and create an environment through several activities and stages”, said Mahmoud Jaqmaqi, member of the initiative team.

Jaqmaqi added in an interview with North Press that “If these events do not turn into a societal culture, our efforts will definitely remain incomplete, and this is the problem we are facing.”

“The numbers of the seedlings that have been accomplished so far are good, but they are still substandard,” Jaqmaqi noted.

Through their Facebook account, the organizers of the initiative called on administrative and civil institutions to support the initiative and help improve environmental conditions.

The volunteers, including students, employees, writers and intellectuals, work between 9am and 5pm to prepare the seedlings for planting at a later time.

The Rojava University Nursery is the second within the initiative after the Afrin Nursery, which has been equipped with about 30,000 seedlings, according to Jaqmaqi.

The initiative chooses to grow forest trees that grow in multiple weather conditions to provide good vegetation aesthetically and healthily.