Prime Minister Barzani Launches Kurdistan Biodiversity Project In Official Ceremony
The official launch confirms the Ninth Cabinet’s direct institutional support for the Kurdistan Foundation’s Climate.KRD initiative to document the Region’s 2,252 recorded species across 19 biodiversity hotspots
ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) - The Kurdistan Biodiversity Project was officially announced in a ceremony attended by Kurdistan Region Prime Minister Masrour Barzani on Tuesday, October 20, 2026, confirming the Ninth Cabinet's direct institutional backing for the Kurdistan Foundation's Climate.KRD initiative to document the plants, animals, and ecosystems of the Kurdistan Region.
Prime Minister Barzani's presence at the launch ceremony places the project within the KRG's broader agenda of environmental protection, sustainable development, and positioning the Kurdistan Region as a destination for scientific research and ecotourism. The Ninth Cabinet has consistently supported initiatives that diversify the Region's international profile beyond security and oil, and the biodiversity project represents one of the most concrete environmental science contributions to emerge from the Kurdistan Region's civil society under the current government's tenure.
The Kurdistan Biodiversity Project, overseen by Climate.KRD as an entity of the Kurdistan Foundation, has documented 2,252 total species across the Kurdistan Region including 1,408 plant species and 844 animal species, spanning 310 birds, 60 mammals, 63 reptiles, 48 fish, 9 amphibians, and 354 butterflies. The data covers 19 biodiversity hotspot areas across the Region's four governorates of Erbil, Duhok, Sulaymaniyah, and Halabja, with the platform publicly accessible at biodiversity.krd and the broader Climate.KRD environmental platform set to launch soon.
Eight scientists and field researchers are contributing to the project: Dr. Korsh Ararat, wildlife and bird researcher from Sulaymaniyah; Dr. Sulaiman Tamr, veterinarian from Duhok; Ibrahim Ziad, assistant lecturer from Duhok; Mohammed Dler, wildlife photographer from Erbil; Rawezh Osman, wildlife photographer from Sulaymaniyah; Saber Dri, photographer and wildlife expert from Erbil; Soma L. Majeed, wildlife researcher from Sulaymaniyah; and Soran H. Ahmed, wildlife researcher from Sulaymaniyah.
The project's future vision is to become the scientific reference for the Kurdistan Region's biodiversity data used by scientists, researchers, government institutions, tourists, and conservationists globally. The data will serve as a baseline for conservation planning, wildlife protection legislation, ecotourism development, and academic research.