ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Rwanga Foundation said on Monday it has replanted a 300-year-old turpentine tree, locally known as the Qazwan tree - a vital cultural and ecological symbol for the Kurdish people - after it was uprooted by strong winds in a village in the Kurdistan Region’s Duhok province.
“Necessary materials were brought and everything that was needed has been done,” Fazil Ashe, the local head of Ashe village northeast of Duhok, where the tree is located, told Rudaw.
He further thanked the Rwanga Foundation and expressed hope that the tree “will grow and bear fruit again.”
The Qazwan tree is native to the Kurdish homeland within the Zagros-Taurus forest belt - a massive crescent-shaped ecological zone that stretches across the highland regions of Iraq, Iran, Turkey, and a small portion of Syria.
The tree is classified as a xerophytic, broad-leaved deciduous tree that has evolved to survive the region’s unique mountainous climate conditions. It thrives in the limestone and rocky soils typical of the Zagros highlands, where it has played a climax role in the vegetation structure for millennia.
For centuries, the tree has been used by local Kurdish communities for its resin, which is used as a natural chewing gum, as well as for its seeds, which are used to produce traditional wild pistachio coffee and medicinal oils.
Heavy rains had caused soil erosion beneath the 300-year-old Qazwan tree in Ashe, eventually making it vulnerable to strong winds that uprooted it.
Hassan Sheikh Aladin, executive director of Rwanga Foundation, told Rudaw that the foundation collaborated with a team of agricultural engineers to replant the tree.
“This is the vision of Mr. Idrees Nechirvan Barzani for serving the environment of Kurdistan, which led us, a team from the Rwanga Foundation, to replant the tree whose history dates back 300 years and which carries a world of bitter and sweet memories,” he said.
Idrees Nechirvan Barzani is the founder and president of Rwanga Foundation, a prominent non-governmental organization based in the Kurdistan Region.
Rwanga was launched in 2013 with a mission to improve social standards through four main sectors: education, youth, environment, and support for vulnerable groups.