Videos published online show villagers in the Soran district in Sulaimani cutting down healthy well-aged trees to use them as firewood to heat their homes for the coming winter.


Life in the mountainous areas of the Kurdistan region could prove challenging especially in the winter as temperatures drop far below zero, although the government prioritizes subsidizing white kerosine to the mountainous region, the people have refused to buy the kerosene at 103,000 IQD, a price that many cannot afford.


People in other areas of the Kurdistan region has refused to buy the fuel at the set price and have also turned to firewood to heat their homes. Some villager have turned tree logging into a business, as demand for firewood has increased, with a load of wood costing between 500 to 600 USD.


The Kurdistan Region Government provides people only one 220-liter barrel of kerosene, even though an ordinary household burns over four barrels to get through the winter.


Since 2020, the price of KRG-subsidized kerosene has increased from 39,000 IQD to 103,000 IQD, as per capita income has decreased due to the Covid19 pandemic and Baghdad’s refusal to spend the KRG-budget share which is mostly to pay salaries of KRG employees.


Iraq is a crisis-hit country with mounting environmental challenges. Just over 1 percent of Iraq is forested and decreasing at an alarming rate, per the Sixth National Report of Iraq to The Convention on Biological Diversity, a state-funded report.