A member of Tehran City Council who heads the council’s health commission published images on Tuesday of trees being cut down in the Shian forest area to build a parking lot for a hotel in the area.
Mehr News Agency and Khabaronline website reported that these images were presented during Tuesday’s session of Tehran City Council on the 24th of Farvardin by Rahmatollah Hafezi, chairman of the council’s health commission.
Mr. Hafezi announced in this session that reviewing aerial images of the green space at the Shian Hotel shows that all green space and trees in this area have been cleared over the past six months.
In this regard, IRIB News Agency, citing the chairman of Tehran City Council’s health commission, reported that “this space belongs to Tehran Municipality and was converted into a parking lot during this year’s Nowruz holidays.”
He added: “The mayor himself should be accountable in this matter, and the concept of developing green spaces and preserving gardens should be shaped in city management.”
Mr. Hafezi also stated that “the destruction of this garden and drying it out to convert it into a parking space” shows that the concept of “developing green spaces” does not exist in Tehran Municipality’s management.
On the 17th of Farvardin of this year, Mohammad Haghani, chairman of Tehran City Council’s environmental committee, had reported the disappearance of 47 trees in Tehran’s Drous Garden.
In this regard, he said: “Cutting down trees is very bad and regrettable, but covering up the facts and denial by municipality officials is even worse.”
According to him, in Drous Garden “47 trees are missing from a total of 144 trees, and municipality officials should say where these 47 trees are?”
Under Iranian law, cutting down trees is considered a crime and heavy penalties are prescribed in these laws for those responsible for cutting trees.
Nevertheless, many government institutions, particularly municipalities, undertake extensive destruction of trees.
For example, in Mordad of 1392, the municipality of District Two of Tehran, with the help of a contracting company, cut down more than one hundred trees, some of which were centuries old, in the Evin area to build a sidewalk.
