(AP) -- Declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2016, they were reborn after the 2003 fall of Saddam Hussein when residents dismantled dams he had built a decade earlier to drain the area.

But now they are imperiled again, this time by government mismanagement and electrical dams and irrigation projects upstream that have reduced the flow of freshwater, allowing saltwater from the Persian Gulf to seep in.

Farming and sewage runoff have depleted fishing stocks, forcing some fishermen to resort to using car batteries and chemicals.