Environment

Al-Monitor – Iran is arid with low levels of annual precipitation and limited water resources that have been shrinking. Drought has gripped most parts of the country for at least a decade now, and precipitation has decreased drastically to its lowest level on record in 50 years. However, the situation is expected to get even worse. The latest figures by …

Al-Arabia – Farmers in Isfahan, in Iran, turned their back on the Friday prayer Emam (leader), in a major display of disrespect.

VOA – Escalating street protests by Iranians against water shortages in a rural part of central Iran have inspired more domestic criticism of the government’s handling of the nation’s water resources. Overseas-based human rights groups say the protests by farmers in Varzaneh in Isfahan province began last month and escalated into violent confrontations with security forces last week. FILE – …

CHRI – “No one knows if they are well or where they are being held.” Several environmentalists who were arrested by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ (IRGC) Intelligence Organization in January 2018 continue to be denied access to legal counsel more than six weeks into their detention.

Iran-HRM – The regime’s security officials have arrested three other environmental activists in Bandar Lengeh, province of Hormozgan (southern Iran).

Al-Monitor – Major Iranian urban centers have seen unprecedented air pollution in recent years. According to officials, it is caused primarily by the many cars on the streets, with heavy vehicles including trucks and buses emitting 63% of air-polluting particles. An estimated 350,000 dilapidated heavy vehicles, according to the traffic police, are particularly large producers of pollutants. These vehicles also consume more fuel than newer vehicles. Aging cars, meanwhile, consume 60% …

Al-Monitor – As Iranian security agencies have been arresting a number of environmentalists, officials from President Hassan Rouhani’s administration are pushing back against the agencies’ ability to charge that those arrested are spies.                         In an interview with Iran Newspaper, which is published by the administration, presidential adviser Ali …

Al-Monitor – A senior military adviser to Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei called Feb. 27 for talks with Iraq and Afghanistan on water resources. At a two-day conference in Tehran, “National Water Diplomacy and Opportunities for Hydropolitics in West Asia,” former Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps commander Yahya Rahim Safavi said, “The issue of the scarcity of water resources may …

RFL/RE – Iran has arrested three more environmentalists on spying charges, the country’s powerful judiciary has said. The arrests on February 25 came weeks after a wave of detentions and the death of a well-known Iranian-Canadian environmentalist who died in Iranian custody. Judiciary spokesman Gholamhossein Mohseni Ejei, quoted by the semi-official Fars news agency, said on February 25 that three …

Guardian – Conservationists sound alarm over unprecedented slaughter of rare and endangered species by hunters at three lagoons Robin McKie The Siberian crane is among species that inhabit or visit Iran’s Fereydunkenar wetlands, where as many as one half – a million birds – are now hunted every year. Photograph: Arterra/UIG via Getty Images A million wild birds a year …