A member of the Tehran City Council who heads the council's Health Commission published images on Tuesday of trees being cut down in the forested area of Xi'an for the purpose of building a parking lot for a hotel in the area.
Mehr News Agency and the Khabar Online website reported that these images were released at a meeting of the Tehran City Council on Tuesday, April 14, by Rahmatollah Hafezi, head of the council's Health Commission.
Mr. Hafezi announced in this meeting that a review of aerial images of the green area of the "Shian" Hotel shows that all the green space and trees in this area have been emptied within six months.
In this context, the Iranian Broadcasting Agency quoted the head of the Tehran City Council's Health Commission as saying that "this space belongs to the Tehran Municipality and has been turned into a parking lot during this year's Nowruz holidays."
He added: "The mayor himself must be accountable in this regard, and the idea of developing green spaces and protecting gardens must be formed in urban management."
Mr. Hafezi also added that "the destruction of this garden and its drying out to turn it into a car park" shows that the thinking of "developing green space" does not exist in the Tehran municipality's management.
On April 7 of this year, Mohammad Haqqani, head of the Tehran City Council's Environment Committee, announced the disappearance of 47 trees in Tehran's "Duros" garden.
He said in this regard: "Cutting down trees is very bad and regrettable, and the concealment of the truth and denial by municipal officials is even uglier."
According to him, in the Drus Garden, "47 trees out of a total of 144 trees are missing, and the municipality officials should tell us where these 47 trees are?"
According to Iranian laws, cutting down trees is considered a crime, and these laws provide for severe punishments for those who cut down trees.
Despite this, many government agencies, especially municipalities, are engaged in widespread tree destruction.
For example, in August 2013, the Municipality of District 2 of Tehran, with the help of a contracting company, cut down more than a hundred trees, some of which were old, in the Evin Darakeh area in order to build a sidewalk.
