Iraq’s vast swamplands are the reputed home of the biblical Garden of Eden, but the waterways are drying out and becoming so clogged with waste their very existence is at risk, activists warn. “For 6,000 or 7,000 years the inhabitants have protected the marshes,” said Raad al-Assadi, director of Chibayish Organisation for Ecotourism, who this week began work on a boat to try to clear some of the worst areas of trash. “But we have reached a stage where the marshes are threatened with extinction.” The swamps, nestled between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, are one of the world’s largest inland …