Environment

Reuters – Oil that reached islands in southern Japan earlier this month is highly likely to have come from the sunken Iranian tanker Sanchi, the Japan Coast Guard said on Thursday.

Iran-HRM – Reza Arbabi, the Director General of the Crisis Management Department of Sistan and Baluchestan Province, said that about 100% of the area of ​​the province suffered from moderate to very severe drought. “Currently, the province’s dams are only 40% full, and the remaining 60 percent is empty. To compensate for the losses, 70 billion tomans (about 19000 dollars) …

CHRI – Environmental activists who were detained at the same time as Kavous Seyed-Emami—who recently died in custody—are being denied access to legal counsel, the Center for Human Rights in Iran (CHRI) has learned. “We are simple, ordinary people. We are not political. But unfortunately, the authorities are not letting lawyers get involved,” a source who requested anonymity for fear …

PayvandNews -The recent sand and dust storms have increased the PM 2.5 fine particles concentration to a ‘beyond hazardous’ level in the southwestern city of Ahwaz, Khuzestan province, on Tuesday. According to Khuzestan provincial department of environment the fine dust concentration has jumped to 60 times above the recommended limits once again over the past months. While the normal level of pollution …

RFL/RE – Mahmoud Sadeqi, an outspoken member of the Iranian parliament says that the deputy chief of Iran’s Department of Environment, Kaveh Madani, has been arrested.

CHRI – Tens of thousands of people living in poverty in Iran’s Sistan and Baluchestan Province are being denied heating oil in the cold winter months because they lack identification papers, the Center for Human Rights in Iran (CHRI) has learned.

Al-Monitor -The air in Iran’s southwestern province of Khuzestan is no longer safe to breathe. Although the region has been dealing with dust and sandstorms for over a decade, it seems that the situation has only become a crisis in recent years. Iran’s petroleum hub of Khuzestan borders Iraq. The province was a front line during the 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq War …

Iran-hrm -Masoud Bagherzadeh Karimi, Director of the Environment Organization’s Wetland Ecosystems, said 90% of the Salahieh and Allahabad wetlands in southern Tehran had dried out. “The drying of these wetlands has become a source of dust for Tehran. This could be a major threat for Tehran and aggravate Tehran’s pollution problem”, he said. “Unfortunately, more than 90 percent of the …

unenvironment.org  – There’s growing awareness in the Islamic Republic of Iran that wetlands are valuable and sustain livelihoods. Ramsar, “the gem of northern Iran”, is the town that gives its name to the Ramsar Convention.

PayvandNews – Iran water crisis (source: cover of Iranian economic magazine Tejarate Fard) By Esfandyar Batmanghelidj (source: LobeLog)   The most important sentence in the Persian language is arguably “Baba ab dad.” The sentence means “father gave water.” It is the first sentence taught to Iranian children when they are learning to read and write. Beyond its phonetic simplicity, it …