Over 21,000 hectares of Iran’s forests burned in 2020
The deputy head of the Iranian Organization of Forests, Rangelands and Watershed Management says that during the year 2020, more than 21,000 hectares of Iran’s forests and forest lands were engulfed in fires.
Reza Beyani said on Sunday, the first day of Farvardin, that one of our major problems during the past year was the occurrence of “numerous forest fires” across the country’s forests.
He added: 3,650 hectares of our natural forests in Iran and 1,034 hectares of planted forests were affected by fires: “We also had forest fires covering approximately 16,589 hectares of forest lands. This means that in total, more than 21,000 hectares of our forests were engulfed in fires during the year 2020.”
Beyani stated that the most fires in 2020 occurred in forest lands, particularly in the Zagros vegetation zone and the Persian Gulf region.
Forest fires and destruction are not limited to these areas alone, and dozens of fires have occurred in the forests of the country’s north and northwest over the past years.
Masoud Molana, a member of Iran’s Environmental and Natural Resources Coordination Council, said in June 2019 that “of the 3.6 million hectares of forest area in the northern forests of the country, only 1.8 million hectares remain today, and 90 percent of that has also deteriorated from its sustainable state.”
On July 5 of the same year, the Hyrcanian forests were registered as Iran’s second natural heritage in UNESCO’s World Heritage List.
One year before that, Hadi Kiaideliri, head of Iran’s Forestry Association, said that “42 percent” of Iran’s northern forests are at risk of “destruction,” and if the current trend continues, within the next 30 years, no forests will remain in these areas.
Iran has approximately 14 million hectares of forest land. According to statistics from the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), this figure was more than 18 million hectares at the beginning of the revolution.
Besides fires, in recent years there have been numerous reports of illegal logging, the sale of forest soil, destructive industrial projects to forests, and their conversion along with rangelands into agricultural areas.
Source: Radio Farda
