While Iran’s environment can no longer tolerate any mistake and mismanagement and is in an extremely critical situation and many experts say that if this trend continues many regions of the country will become uninhabitable, with a two-month delay the regime has appointed Ali Selajgeh, as the new head of the Environmental Protection Organization.
The question is, how much motivation, knowledge, and of course power does this organization have to protect the country’s environment under new management?
In recent years, Iran has been grappling with several environmental problems, from climate change and global warming to floods and fires in forests, like other places in the world.
But the difference is that contrary to other countries, the regime does not care about the situation in Iran, and in the four main components of the environment – water, ground, air, and biodiversity – the country is in a critical situation.
Iran has the highest soil erosion rate in the world, according to a 2018 UN report. One-twelfth of the total global soil erosion occurs in Iran.
However, not all of Iran’s environmental problems end with this case: drought, lack of water resources, land subsidence, air pollution, dust, habitat destruction, land-use change, forest, and grassland fires are just some of several environmental challenges that can change the fate of the inhabitants of Iran and lead to many political, social and economic tensions, something that we have witnessed in the past months and years many times, protests which occur mainly in high populated areas, from Isfahan to Ahvaz and elsewhere.
Ironically, the regime claims that the root of these problems and the following protests are the crises created by foreign enemies, while when the situation is becoming more critical many of the regime’s elements suggest the rule to put these senseless jokes away and find a solution for this danger.
Many state-run dailies know the reason for this delay because of the pressure from the regime’s different mafia factions from political to economic. Mafia factions and cartels were concerned that their benefits would be overshadowed by a new decision.
Currently, 304 cities of Iran are experiencing water stress, among them 101 are in a red situation and are struggling with their water supply.
More than 80% of the country’s wetlands lack water or are in severely critical condition, and wetlands in the south of the country, Bakhtegan Lake, Jazmurian, and Gavkhooni have been victims of indiscriminate dam construction and development.
But as mentioned above, the country’s environment doesn’t just suffer from water stress. Soil erosion and its consequences are also a major obstacle to the country’s development. Experts have also announced the country’s average rate of special erosion from 16 to 25 tons per hectare per year. However, the average global statistics are 6 tons, and it takes at least 700 years to form a centimeter of soil.
Land subsidence is another warning that experts have called a ‘quiet time bomb.’ According to the head of the National Surveying Organization, 29 of the country’s 31 provinces are at risk of land subsidence.
Forests and wetlands fires are also other important issues that we’ve seen more than ever in recent years, due to the regime’s carelessness.
According to the Parliamentary Research Center and according to the statistics of the last 20 years of the Forests Organization, 30,000 fires have occurred in the forests and rangelands of the country, destroying more than 280,000 hectares of forests and grasslands.
In other words, Iran has lost 14,000 hectares of forests and grasslands annually in wildfires alone. But in addition to water, soil, fire disasters, air pollution from particulate matter and ozone to sandstorms is also a serious and breathtaking crisis that directly affects people’s health.
Many experts believe that tackling air problems in Iran requires the environmental organization’s management ability to deal with the country’s non-standard and outdated factories, automakers, and petrochemical companies. This is something that has not happened in the last 42 years since the mullahs took power.
