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Drought and lack of rainfall are important factors contributing to the current crisis. However, growing population, disastrous agricultural practices, poor water management, and aggressive groundwater withdrawal and dam building without proper impact assessment are the leading causes of the current water bankruptcy and socio-economic drought. But these are also political issues for they touch on the financial interests of powerful institutions. Companies linked to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps have been involved in dam-building businesses. The military has commandeered wildlife protected areas.
Conservationists and environmentalists are under enormous pressure and subject to mistrust and suspicion. Decades-long activities have suddenly become illegal.
Kavous Seyed-Emami, an Iranian-Canadian professor who ran the Persian Wildlife Heritage Foundation (PWHF), lost his life while in detention in the infamous Evin Prison in Tehran in February. There are still environmentalists and conservationists in prisons. A brilliant Iranian scientist Kaveh Madani, from Imperial College in London, joined Hassan Rouhani’s government as deputy head of Iran’s Department of Environment because of his belief that security in the Middle East and Iran is directly linked to water security. He came under the surveillance of the Iranian Intelligence Services and was eventually forced to leave the country under pressure from hardliners.
full: https://lobelog.com/irans-environment-the-grass-beneath-two-fighting-elephants/
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