Saddam Hussein had scant regard for the largest wetlands in the Middle East, which teem with unique wildlife like the smooth-coated otter, Mesopotamian deer and Basra reed warbler. He saw them merely as a haven for hiding rebels and deserters from the Iran-Iraq War, and in the early 1990s, he ordered them to be drained.

By 2003, more than 90% of the Mesopotamian wetlands, dubbed the Garden of Eden, had been lost, and reduced to barren salt pans. Experts feared that the region, home to an ancient people considered the heirs of the Babylonians and Sumerians, would vanish by 2008.

Now, with a huge multibillion dollar restoration underway, funded by the US, Canadian and Italian governments and the United Nations environment programme (UNEP) many Ma'dan (Marsh Arabs) are returning to a life that has changed little in 5,000 years.

But, after years of urban exile, they are now accustomed to modern life's comforts, such as electricity, television, air-conditioning and wireless internet.

To meet old and these newly acquired needs, a two-and-a half-year feasibility study has produced a vision for "New Eden" – a bold masterplan which aims for an "intersection between green technologies and traditional environmental knowledge."

Iraq architects and designers have drawn up villages of mudhif – traditional reed houses, but which now have partitioned rooms, kitchens and bathrooms and use sewage collection systems instead of dumping waste.

Some settlements will include small-scale solar-powered water treatment systems, while others will rely on reed beds that act as huge natural filters, once restored.

Plans also include solar cells with enough energy to run fans, though some villages already have a community generator for air-conditioning.

"There is nothing that prevents the integration of modern life conveniences with life in the marshes," says engineer and conservationist Dr Azzam Awash, director of non-governmental organisation Nature Iraq.

"Mobile phone towers can be easily hidden as palm trees, solar panels and wind power can be harvested, satellite dishes and wireless communications can provide a connection to the rest of the global village.

"Local materials can be used to build homes in a modern style on the inside while maintaining the functionality of the huts on the outside."

Awash continues: "There is no difficulty in providing for the needs of the families while protecting the environment and allowing the locals to live off the good of the land without stressing their environment."

However, Baroness Nicholson MEP, World Health Organisation special envoy for the region and chairwoman of Marsh Arab charity, AMAR, has just returned from a conference there. She says tribal leaders' priorities are for more basic needs and that for most, currently, technology - green or otherwise - is secondary.

"I think it's a truly excellent vision – but this horizon is a long, long way off. The basic-need provision is still not there. Still most of the population does not have access to water or electricity and there are very few roads."

She says the incidence of disease is extremely high, with increasing cholera moving from the north to the south.

"This is an excellent plan but we cannot try to make the Iraq people run before they have got back properly on their feet."

The UN agrees, saying the need to stem the critically high incidence of gastrointestinal diseases, especially in children, is "urgent" as is tackling the agrochemicals and heavy metals dumped in the Tigris and Euphrates rivers.

Fresh water is vital, not only for migrating birds which shelter there, but also for an area which used to provide 60% of Iraq's fish – a figure which is now drastically reduced.

The restoration of this area - 40,000 square miles consisting of three provinces (Basrah, Missan and Thi Qar) - is funded by international aid and run by the Iraqi government under UNEP guidance. The New Eden project covers around a quarter of this area and will affect some 1,500 communities.

But many Marsh Arabs took matters into their own hands once Saddam was deposed, pulling down dams and blocking drainage canals to reflood the basins.

Now, an estimated fifth of the marshes have been reflooded and it is hoped up to 80% of the marshes can be returned to their former state.

However, fuller restoration hinges on talks with Turkey and Syria over water supplies and mountain ice melt floes as well as damming elsewhere in Iraq.

Once services are in place, project heads expect a huge wave of "reverse migration." An estimated 45,000 Marsh Arabs clung to the remnants of the devastated land, hundreds of thousands sought an existence in Iraqi towns and cities and will be accompanied by some 40,000 others returning from hiding in Iran.

It is hoped people can yet again make a living from fishing, making reed products, water buffalo husbandry and small-scale farming.

"If modern life conveniences are provided and they can use the marshes to make a living, there'll be nothing that holds them back and ties them down to the city," says Alwash