On Sunday, at the “International Summit on Sand and Dust Storms,” Iranian regime president Ebrahim Raisi referred to industrial and military developments in “developed countries” as “injustice to humanity” and the environment.
The Iranian regime President stated that developed countries are “only” focused on their own industrial and military development, disregarding the impact on the air, sea, water, soil, forests, and space.
While Raisi accuses other countries of “neglect” towards the environment, environmental experts warn that Iran has experienced “tragic” conditions due to the wrong policies of the Iranian regime’s authorities over the past four decades.
Shirin Hakim, the director of the unit for “environment, climate security, and public health” in Berlin, previously stated, “With the mismanagement of the Islamic Republic, the water situation in Iran has become critical, and irreparable damage has been done to the environment.”
Isa Kalantari, the former head of the Environmental Protection Organization, also stated some time ago, “Iran has a 7,000-year history of civilization, but in the past 25 years, we have depleted the country’s water resources because all the water authority is in the hands of one person.”
In comments to the Didban-e Iran website, he said, “We are severely anti-science. With water consumption, all the lakes, wetlands, and rivers have dried up, and then they wonder why there are problems.”
The publication of images of Lake Urmia in mid-August surprised social media users, and Salman Zaker, the representative of this city in the parliament, stated that with the drying up of this lake, the lives of about “five million people” are at risk and exposed to “respiratory diseases.”
Ali Alizadeh, a member of the parliament’s Research and Inspection Committee on the “Lake Urmia Restoration Headquarters,” also told Shargh newspaper on August 1, “There is no water capacity in the region to revive Lake Urmia, and there is no hope for the revival of the lake with imaginative plans.”
Lake Urmia, which was once known as the indigo eye of Iran, is in a more critical condition in comparison to previous years. According to environmental experts, the water level of Lake Urmia has reached its lowest record in the last 60 years. The concern regarding the risk of Lake Urmia drying up dates back to the beginning in the 2000s. But the leaders of Iran’s regime have continued to plunder the water rights of this lake despite these threats.
According to the results of a study by Sharif University of Technology, “The water level of Lake Urmia on June 3 was the lowest recorded since 1964, and now in 2015 the water volume has also substantially decreased.”
In addition to the drying up of lakes and wetlands, the level of air pollution and the invasion of dust storms in Iran have also created a critical situation in the country.
The level of air pollution and the influx of dust storms in the skies of Iran are increasing, and according to media reports, 60% of Iran has been affected by dust storms. The Environmental Protection Organization of Iran says that certain areas in the northwest of Iran have faced a new wave of dust storms.
Ali Salajegheh, the head of the Environmental Protection Organization of Iran, announced that the origin of the dust storms in the north and northeast of the country is Turkmenistan, but Mohammad Darvish, an environmental expert, says that Turkmenistan’s contribution to the increase in dust storms in Mazandaran is only 15%.
According to Darvish, the entire plains of Turkmen Sahra and international wetlands in that region have dried up. “If we do not change our interaction with nature, we will face conditions in the northern provinces that are more severe than Isfahan, Semnan, and Yazd,” he warned.
This regime that has spent all the wealth of the country on its own survival, does not care about the improvement of the environmental situation. For this reason, we are witnessing the destruction of many wetlands, rivers, etc. Zayandeh Rud, Gavkhoni, Maharlo, Karun, Horul Azim and… are just examples of this great crime by the current regime.
