IRAN’S 46 YEARS OF ENVIRONMENTAL DEGRADATION

 Iran was once home to rare marshes, wetlands, and dense forests, but decades of neglect have led to the devastation of the country’s environment. Prior to the 1979 revolution, Iran’s population, numbering 34 million at that time, relied on a stable water supply, sourced from millennia-old underground canals and aquifers. The Islamic revolution, highjacked by the mullahs, changed all that. The theocratic regime handed control of the nationalized water industry and indeed control over 70% of all other business, industrial and service sectors, to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and Iran, with a population now numbering 95 million, faces an ecological disaster. The mullahs’ maladministration, over almost five decades, has left Iran struggling with deforestation, desertification, water scarcity, air pollution, and countless other examples of environmental degradation. Climate change is exacerbating these environmental issues and turning them into a matter of life and death for the Iranian population.

The deprived people living in southern, central and eastern Iran have witnessed the relentless destruction of their water infrastructure by the regime’s institutions, primarily the IRGC. Combining rank incompetence, venal corruption, and a total disregard for environmental concerns, the IRGC set about a decades’ long program of widespread hydropower dam building, in a series of huge and dishonestly lucrative infrastructure projects, that blocked and diverted rivers and drained lakes and aquifers. Many dams have been constructed in the wrong places, preventing water from reaching towns and villages and causing drought in some areas and flooding in others. Farmers, deprived of a regular water supply are no longer able to irrigate their crops, creating food shortages. Meanwhile corrupt IRGC officials pocket the profits from selling potable water at outrageous prices to some of Iran’s poorest people. As always, when sporadic protests break out, the regime refuses to help, instead ordering the IRGC and Basij internal security thugs to crackdown on protesters and crush dissent, turning Iran into a volatile powder-keg, that is ready again to explode into open insurrection.

The mullahs’ response to the growing economic crisis, with a plunging currency and 40% inflation, has devastated Iran’s fragile environment. Determined to achieve self-sufficiency in agriculture and several other sectors, the theocratic regime ordered the felling of forests and draining of reservoirs, to create more available land for growing crops. The results were predictable, with environmental degradation accelerating and poverty and deprivation growing exponentially. Refusing to accept responsibility for these self-inflicted disasters, the mullahs turned their fury onto Iran’s dwindling community of environmentalists, arresting some of them on trumped-up spying charges.

In the last decade, more than 70,000 hectares of the country’s forests have been destroyed due to fire, pests, disease, dams, road building, other construction activities and timber smuggling, much of it under the control of the IRGC. Forest fires are destroying another 12,000 hectares every year. Rapid desertification, due to the IRGC’s reckless dam-building programme, has caused Iran to lose more than two-thirds of its agricultural land through drought and subsidence. Sand and dust storms now wreck crops.

Air pollution is so severe in Tehran and most large cities, that schools, businesses and government offices are regularly closed because of dangerously high levels of toxins. Tehran and other Iranian cities are among the most polluted in the world. Despite Iran possessing the second-largest global natural gas reserves, winter fuel shortages during spells of deadly cold weather, combined with toxic levels of air pollution, have caused the deaths of thousands. According to state-run media, on Tuesday, February 11, most schools across various provinces were closed due to air pollution and severe cold. Newspaper reports stated: “The Tehran Meteorological Office has warned about the gradual accumulation of pollutants and declining air quality.”

The burning of mazut, a high-sulphur fuel oil, and toxic emissions from industries controlled by the IRGC who use this fuel, are one of the main causes of air pollution. The situation became so bad in the city of Arak, the industrial capital of Iran, that on 4 February, thousands took to the streets in protest at the deadly levels of pollution. Some of the banners and placards they held read: “Arak has no air,” “Stop burning mazut,” “Thanks to officials, we’ve turned from an industrial hub into a cancer center,” “I can’t breathe in this city,” “Clean air is Arak’s right,” and “Replace politicians with trees so the air gets fresh…”

Protests against the increase in severe respiratory illnesses, that are reckoned to cause around 50,000 deaths every year in Iran due to air pollution, are ruthlessly crushed by the IRGC and their thuggish Basij colleagues. Conservationists and environmental campaigners dare not voice their concerns for fear of retribution. Hundreds are already in prison. Richard Pearhouse, the former head of crises and environment at Amnesty International stated: “Highly respected conservationists in Iran face torture, unfair trials on fabricated charges, and prolonged arbitrary detention”. There has been an unprecedented brain drain as scientists and conservationists flee the country.

However, an increase in demonstrations and protests underscore the deepening divide in Iran, as people from diverse backgrounds and regions demand accountability, safety, and basic economic and environmental protections. The lack of response from the mullahs to these widespread grievances has led to heightened tensions, with more demonstrations expected in the coming weeks as public dissatisfaction continues to rise. Environmental degradation has become a major issue in Iran, as a source of economic hardship, ill health and social disruption. Burgeoning resistance units of the main democratic opposition movement – the People’s Mojahedin of Iran/Mujahedin-e Khalq (PMOI/MEK) – are determined to overthrow the theocratic dictatorship and restore freedom, justice, democracy and environmental sustainability. It is time for Western leaders to show their moral support for these courageous young men and women.