End of 72-Hour Armed Clashes in Miankaleh; Four ‘Masked Hunters’ Arrested
The commander of the protection unit of Iran’s Environmental Protection Organization announced the end of a 72-hour armed confrontation between approximately one hundred hunters and environmental rangers in the Miankaleh wetland protected area.
According to the Young Journalists Club report, Colonel Jamshid Mohabbat Khani said on Friday: “Over the past three days, around 100 hunters with covered faces and masks, in protest of hunting permits not being issued over the past two years, stormed toward protected areas and clashed with environmental rangers, resulting in 4 rangers suffering minor injuries.”
Since Wednesday, Esfand 20, multiple reports appeared in local media and subsequently Iran’s official media outlets about armed clashes between masked individuals and environmental rangers in Miankaleh wetland and Ashuradeh Island.
However, after three days, according to this senior environmental protection official of the Islamic Republic, “4 masked hunters have been arrested and the rest will be arrested soon.”
Miankaleh International Wetland is one of nine biosphere reserves on Earth and Iran’s first wetland registered under the Global Wetlands Convention, and is one of the important habitats for migratory birds.
The Miankaleh Peninsula, Gorgan Gulf, and Ashuradeh Island are part of the 68,800-hectare Miankaleh Wildlife Refuge, which also comprises 2.8 percent of the total area of Mazandaran Province.
On Wednesday, Esfand 20, Ali Kalaheh, head of the Miankaleh Wildlife Refuge, told the ISNA news agency about the attack by these hunters on 6 environmental rangers in this protected area with shotguns and a lack of resources including “body armor, anti-bullet helmets, suitable boats with great depth, and radios” for defending and protecting the wetland.
Simultaneously, Hossein Ali Ebrahimi Karnam, the director general of environmental protection for Mazandaran, told the Young Journalists Club: “Although the attack by unauthorized hunters on Miankaleh environmental rangers has precedent in previous years, and for example on Esfand 25, 1398 resulted in four environmental rangers being wounded, the recent attacks this time were more extensive than before and unprecedented in nature.”
On Thursday, Esfand 21, Rouhollah Salgi, the deputy for political, security, and social affairs of the Mazandaran governor, told the state IRNA news agency: “The clashes between hunters and environmental rangers in Miankaleh wetland were not related to Mazandaran’s political geography borders and occurred in Golestan Province’s territory, which of course was managed over recent days.”
On the same day, Farsi news agency also reported: “It is said that around 10 days ago, nearly 150 hunters entered the Ashuradeh area for illegal hunting, an incident that was repeated on Esfand 19.”
According to Moslem Ahangar, commander of the environmental protection unit of Mazandaran, in early Esfand “a number of hunters” were engaged in “illegal bird hunting” on the Ashuradeh coasts and Turkmen Port, who are given warnings but shoot at environmental rangers, and these clashes repeat six days later and then intensify on Esfand 12 and 19.
Finally, on the evening of Esfand 21, the commander of the protection unit of the Environmental Protection Organization, while confirming the arrest of four of the hundred attackers from previous days, stated: “If hunters have complaints, they should approach the Environmental Protection Organization and raise their demands through legal channels.”
According to some activists, given that the Esfand clashes between local hunters and environmental rangers are not the first case this year or the only instance in recent years, it is possible that with increasing economic pressures and reduced attention to environmental issues in the Islamic Republic’s macro plans and government budget, similar cases may occur in this area or other protected areas of Iran.
Source: DW
