Coordinates: 33°18′27″N 44°23′25″E / 33.307577°N 44.390259°E / 33.307577; 44.390259

The Green Zone (Arabic: المنطقة الخضراء) is the most common name for the International Zone of Baghdad. It is a 10 square kilometers (3.9 sq mi) area of central Baghdad, Iraq, that was the governmental center of the Coalition Provisional Authority and remains the center of the international presence in the city. Its official name beginning under the Iraqi Interim Government is the International Zone, though Green Zone remains the most commonly used term. The contrasting Red Zone refers to parts of Baghdad immediately outside the perimeter, but was also loosely applied to all unsecured areas outside the off-site military posts. Both terms originated as military designations.

The Green Zone was a heavily fortified zone in the center of the Iraqi capital that served as the headquarters of successive Iraqi regimes. It was the administrative center for the Ba'ath Party. The area was not originally home to the villas of government officials though it was the location of a number of military bases, government ministries, and presidential palaces inhabited by Saddam Hussein and his family. The largest of these was the Republican Palace that was President Saddam Hussein's primary seat of power. The area is also known as Karradat Mariam so named for a locally famous woman who helped the poor people of Baghdad.^{[citation needed]}

Baghdad (Arabic: بغداد‎, Baġdād, IPA: [bæɣˈdæːd]) is the capital of Republic of Iraq, as well as the coterminous Baghdad Province. The population of Baghdad as of 2011 is approximately 7,216,040, making it the largest city in Iraq, the second largest city in the Arab World (after Cairo, Egypt), and the second largest city in Western Asia (after Tehran, Iran).

Located along the Tigris River, the city was founded in the 8th century and became the capital of the Abbasid Caliphate. Within a short time of its inception, Baghdad evolved into a significant cultural, commercial, and intellectual center for the Islamic World. This in addition to housing several key academic institutions (e.g. House of Wisdom) garnered the city a worldwide reputation as the "Center of Learning". Throughout the High Middle Ages, Baghdad was considered to be the largest city in the world with an estimated population of 1,200,000 people. The city was largely destroyed at the hands of the Mongol Empire in 1258, resulting in a decline that would linger through many centuries due to frequent plagues and multiple successive empires. With the recognition of Iraq as an independent state (formerly the British Mandate of Mesopotamia) in 1938, Baghdad gradually regained some of its former prominence as a significant center of Arabic culture.

Lawrence Anthony (17 September 1950 – 2 March 2012) was an international conservationist, environmentalist, explorer, and bestselling author.

Anthony was born in Johannesburg, South Africa, and raised in rural Rhodesia (now called Zimbabwe), Zambia, and Malawi. He was the long-standing head of conservation at the Thula Thula game reserve in Zululand South Africa and the Founder of The Earth Organization, a privately registered, independent, international conservation and environmental group with a strong scientific orientation. He was an international member of the esteemed Explorers Club of New York and a member of the National Council of the South African Association for the Advancement of Science, South Africa’s oldest scientific association.

Anthony had a reputation for bold conservation initiatives, including the rescue of the Baghdad zoo at the height of the US lead Coalition 2003 invasion of Iraq, and negotiations with the infamous Lord's Resistance Army rebel army in Southern Sudan, to raise awareness of the environment and protect endangered species, including the last of the Northern White Rhinoceros