Saving the world's wetlands

During the Vietnam War, North Vietnamese VietCong guerrillas built a vast network of tunnels in the south of the country as part of the insurgency against the South Vietnamese government and their American allies. The tunnel network was a key base and shelter for the North Vietna ...  Show more

In 1991, a small company led by an Iranian-born engineer, Rouzbeh Yassini, created a technology which enabled millions of homes across America to access the internet for the first time. Rouzbeh and his team found a way to use the existing cable TV infrastructure that was already ...  Show more

Azzam Alwash remembers the marshlands of southern Iraq as a magical place, where he would spend long days gliding through the thick reeds by boat with his father. But for decades now, the area has been under threat, so Azzam has become part of the effort to save the natural wonde ...  Show more

The peatlands of Africa's Congo Basin are a vast expanse of swamp and greenery that act as one of the world's most effective carbon sinks -- and they're under threat of environmental destruction. Economist Vera Songwe explains how putting a price on the carbon stored in the peatl ...  Show more

The world's wetlands store carbon and can help us tackle some of the impacts of climate change. Are we overlooking their importance? And what can we do to protect them more?Graihagh Jackson travels to wetlands near her home in East Anglia while Qasa Alom reports from the Bay of B ...  Show more

In this week's episode of Babel, Jon Alterman talks with Dr. Azzam Alwash, an engineer working to restore Iraq's wetlands and the founder of Nature Iraq. Dr. Alwash talks about why wetlands are important and how he and others work to convince Iraq's government to take action. The ...  Show more