Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUES
Iran faces several serious environmental challenges, most of which can be summed up as
habitat loss and pollution. But it's not all bad news. Public awareness of the environment
has risen significantly in recent years.
Habitat Loss
When environmental historians look back at Iran, the 1980s will be seen as a disastrous
decade. Upheaval following the revolution and during the Iran-Iraq War prompted rapid,
uncontrolled expansion of grazing lands, often into sensitive semidesert areas, leading to
overgrazing and, in some areas, desertification. Massive population growth didn't help and
crops were soon being sewn in areas unsuitable for intensive agriculture.
The impacts have been dire. Official estimates suggest 80% of the forest that existed in
Iran during the 1970s is now gone, resulting in flooding, erosion and desertification. Wild-
life has been pushed into ever-decreasing areas and competition for prey has become critic-
al.
These problems have been exacerbated by a
land tenure act passed in the 1980s that changed
millennia of land-use practice. Traditionally ran-
gelands were grazed seasonally by nomadic
tribes, but tenure over rangelands is now ob-
tained by regular cultivation of land, regardless
of its suitability. On the plus side, the govern-
ment is aware of the problem and in recent years
school children have planted millions of trees.
While most attention has been focused on the coun-
try's nuclear power program, Iran is the Middle
East's only producer of wind turbines and has sev-
eral wind farms and a major solar power plant in
Yazd.
Pollution
Chronic air pollution is the environmental problem you're most likely to notice while trav-
elling in Iran. Tehran sets the standard (
Click here
)
but growing industry and car ownership
have made poisonous air a problem across the country. Iran's pollution problem is worse
for having been ignored until it reached crisis point.
The good news is the government has taken dramatic steps to force people into realising
the impact of endlessly burning fossil fuels. The most important, and controversial, has
been removing subsidies and thus raising the price of all fuels (that the motivation was
more economic than environmental is by the by). Until about 2007, many Iranians believed
cheap fuel was their birthright. Since then the prices of
benzin
(petrol), gas and electricity
