Sulaymaniyah Toward a Greener Future: A New Step in Ecotourism Development, with the "Martyrs' Park" Reserve Project as a Model

*Gharib Ali Salim


The primary goal of establishing a natural reserve is to protect all natural resources within a designated area, ensuring they remain in their original state, safe from harmful human intervention and protected from the risks of destruction or extinction.
This protection encompasses all components of the ecosystem, including vegetation (both natural and cultivated), wildlife, birds, and mountain habitats.
Globally, this concept is expressed through various terms, such as natural reserves, national parks, and protected areas. These variations in terminology reflect the diversity of natural and human characteristics of each region, as well as the differing objectives for which they were established. Nevertheless, most of these protected areas share a single goal: protecting natural resources from harmful human activities.
Under international agreements, including those supported by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), establishing protected natural areas is not merely about allocating land or preserving pristine landscapes. Rather, it represents an integrated approach to the sustainable management and investment of biological resources, ensuring a balance between biodiversity conservation, economic development, and human activity.
Furthermore, as the importance of vegetation, forests, and parks to the tourism sector is increasingly recognized, many countries around the world have begun to view ecotourism as a major source of revenue. Consequently, establishing protected natural areas has become a key priority for governments due to the scientific, cultural, environmental, and tourism objectives it fulfills.
Tourism is one of the most prominent activities conducted within protected natural areas. For example, according to statistics from Germany in 1977, approximately 50% of visitors to natural reserves went for tourism purposes. Furthermore, a survey on tourist preferences showed that 91.4% of respondents expressed a desire to visit protected natural areas and enjoy their landscapes, while only 3.2% showed little to no interest.
In this context, the "Martyrs' Park" Reserve project is considered one of the strategic initiatives of the President Jalal Talabani Foundation in Sulaymaniyah. The project aims to establish a green zone, increase green spaces, and honor the memory and names of martyrs within the local environment, creating an important environmental and cultural asset for future generations and ensuring that the names of the martyrs remain immortalized.
A specialized technical team from the Iraqi Ministry of Environment has commenced field survey operations on the land allocated for the project in the Sulaymaniyah region. This initiative serves as a preliminary step toward completing the technical and environmental requirements necessary to declare the area a natural reserve once all approved standards and criteria are met.
Declaring the area a natural reserve aims to foster both ecotourism and memory tourism.
This institutional coordination helps shift the tourism sector from its traditional format toward a model of sustainable tourism by:

1-Developing Scientific and Educational Tourism: Transforming the park into an open-air laboratory for researchers and university students across the Kurdistan Region and Iraq.

2-Promoting Memory Tourism: Ensuring that visitors and tourists do not visit solely for leisure in nature, but also to learn about the history, identity, and sacrifices of the martyrs.

3-Integrating Culture and History with Nature: Linking the names of the martyrs to the concept of the "immortality and renewal of nature," bestowing a national dimension upon the area that embodies loyalty and appreciation.

4-Enhancing Sulaymaniyah’s Tourism Brand: Securing official status as a natural reserve will place Sulaymaniyah on the regional green tourism map.

It is essential for relevant authorities to collaborate to ensure that these official and scientific approaches achieve their environmental, economic, and tourism objectives.
In conclusion, the initiation of field survey operations by the technical team from the Iraqi Ministry of Environment for the "Martyrs' Park" Reserve project in Sulaymaniyah, in coordination with the President Jalal Talabani Foundation, reflects the evolution of environmental and tourism thinking in the Kurdistan Region and Iraq. This project is expected to become a benchmark model combining nature conservation, the honoring of martyrs' memories, and the development of sustainable and memory tourism—providing a long-lasting environmental and cultural legacy for present and future generations.

*Ph.D. Student in Tourism Marketing, University of Sulaimani