AZZAM ALWASH’S face is deeply tanned, his nose peeling like it did when he was an outdoorsy 11-year-old. "I am proud of my sunburn," he says, having recently arrived in Iraq’s southern port city of Basra after a hot, month-long expedition to sail three traditional boats from the river Tigris's source in south-eastern Turkey. Mr Alwash, an environmentalist, and his NGO, Nature Iraq, wanted to honour their country's heritage and draw attention to the dwindling water levels in its rivers.

While parts of Iraq are desert, two waterways feed lush farmland and swathes of marsh full of water buffalo. The Greeks called it Mesopotamia, meaning “between the rivers”. Some of the earliest agriculture began here, and the Euphrates and Tigris have historically been arteries of trade and travel between Arabs, Kurds and Turks. Now, a series of dams constructed in Turkey since the 1960s have reduced the amount of water and made it saltier, contributing to drought and desertification. Another, bigger dam planned for the Turkish village of Ilisu will generate hydroelectricity for Turkey, but deplete Iraq's water further. "Agriculture is going to die in the land where it was born," laments Mr Alwash.

So his colleagues and friends set to work on three boats. The guffa, which traditionally sometimes lasted just a single long river voyage, is made from straw woven over pomegranate branches and waterproofed with pitch. The tarada, a long slim canoe, was made by a boatbuilder in Basra, one of the few who still remembers how. The kelek, inflated goatskins attached to a raft, was constructed in the Turkish town of Hasankeyf, near the river's source. An elderly local who claimed to have made his first kelek journey to Basra in 1927 taught Mr Alwash and his fellow sailors how to steer theirs.