Italy is contributing 1.2 million euros (US$1.3 million) to an environment project aimed at restoring the Mesopotamian marshes in Iraq and improve water supply for millions of people, officials said Wednesday.

About 90 percent of the Mesopotamian marshlands - that many scholars believe was the site of the biblical Garden of Eden - were drained at Saddam Hussein's orders after 1991.

"The marshes are dead, completely dead," said Azzam Alwash, who oversees the project. "Iraq has been using the Tigris and Euphrates as an open sewer."

The project has been promoted by the Washington-based pro-democracy Iraq Foundation. The group has carried out studies in the last 18 months with funding from the U.S. Department of State, said foundation president Rend Rahim Francke.

"It is an issue of high national and emotional importance for the Iraqi people," she told reporters in Rome. "The project is significant not only to the environmental health of the Iraqis but also to the environmental health of the region, and indeed to the heritage of our common human civilization."

"This has only been made possible by the liberation of Iraq from the tyranny of Saddam," Francke added.

The marshlands - home to rare species of boar and otter and a spawning ground for Persian Gulf fisheries - once extended 15,000 to 20,000 square km across an area straddling the Iran-Iraq border.

For more than a decade, Saddam systematically destroyed the vast wetlands of southern Iraq - building dams and canals to drain the swamps, setting fire to the sea of reeds, and arresting and killing residents.

The project will kick off in September, when dozens of experts will look into low-cost technology to clean the water of the Tigris and Euphrates.

Alwash, who said Denmark is also participating in the project, called for increased international cooperation. He said the project's overall financing amounted to "tens of millions" but did not provide an exact figure.

The Italian contribution is scheduled to last until March, but more resources could be invested after then, Environment Minister Altero Matteoli said.

Matteoli also said he hoped the project would pave the way for private investment in the region from Italian companies.

The U.S. ambassador to Italy, Mel Sembler, welcomed the initiative.

"After years of brutal dictatorship, now we must look ahead to commit ourselves to restoring natural resources, preventing further damage to the environment and protecting the future of Iraqi children," he said.

Along with restoring the marshes, the project is intended to improve water supply and bring potable water to the Iraqi people.

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